LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court on Thursday granted post-arrest bail to 39 activists of the PTI in a case of attacking Lahore corps commander’s residence, also known as Jinnah House, during May 9 riots.

Judge Arshad Javed allowed the bail petitions of the jailed activists subject to furnishing of surety bonds of Rs100, 000.

Those granted bail include Shan Ali, Nadir Mahmood, Awais Ali, Yar Gul, Waqar Jamil, Zeeshan Butt, Kashif Khan, Awn Abbas, Naqeeb Ahmad, Riaz Ahmad and Tasawur Hussain.

Lawyers for the activists mainly argued that they had not committed any illegal act.

They said the police have failed to produce any evidence establishing charges against the petitioners. They said the investigation rather showed the petitioners were peaceful participants of a political march.

The counsel said the police levelled general accusations against the petitioners without attributing any specific role to them.

They further argued that the petitioners were not nominated in the FIR and police implicated them at a later stage without conducting identification parade of the suspects.

They pointed out that many suspects having similar roles had already been released on bail and, therefore, the rule of consistency was applicable to these petitioners also.

Sarwar Road police had registered FIR No 96 against PTI leaders and workers on charges of attacking and vandalising the Jinnah House during the May 9 violent protests which had erupted after the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan in a graft case by NAB from the Islamabad High Court.

Over the last two months, over 200 male and female activists of PTI have been granted bail in the Jinnah House attack by different trial courts.

Besides terrorism charges under Section 7 of the Anti-Tterrorism Act, 1997, various offences were added to the FIR.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2024