LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Saturday disposed of pre-arrest bail petitions of 16 PTI activists in the Jinnah House (corps commander house) attack as the police investigation found them innocent in the case.

ATC-I Judge Manzer Ali Gill heard the bail petitions of 39 workers of the PTI in FIR 96 of 2023 regarding the attack on the corps commander house.

A representative of a joint investigation team (JIT) told the court that 16 suspects had been exonerated from the charges in the investigation due to lack of evidence against them.

However, he said, the remaining 23 petitioners had not joined the investigation so far.

The judge disposed of the bail petitions of 16 petitioners after their lawyers wished to withdraw the pleas in light of the JIT report.

The exonerated suspects are Rafiq, Asif, Zohaib, Hamza, Shahid Hussain, Shehroze Khan, Shahid Ali, Shahid Bashir, Shah Khalid, Muhammad Tauqir, Farhan Ali, Moazam Ali, Muhammad Khalid, Ghulam Murtaza, Asif Ali and Faisal Iftikhar.

The judge extended the pre-arrest bail of 23 suspects till Nov 29 with a direction to join the police investigation without fail.

Sarwar Road police had registered the FIR against the leaders and workers of the PTI for attacking and vandalising the corps commander house during the May 9 riots last year against the arrest of Imran Khan by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in a graft case.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2024