A Karachi anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Monday sent Chanesar Town Municipal Corporation (TMC) Chairman Farhan Ghani on a four-day physical remand over the alleged assault of a government employee.

Farhan, brother of PPP leader and Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani, was arrested and remanded in a terrorism and attempted murder case on Sunday for allegedly assaulting a government employee overseeing fibre optic network laying work on Sharea Faisal. Saeed had said his brother and his associates would voluntarily surrender themselves and prove their “innocence in court”.

Farhan, Shakeel and Qamar Ahmed were produced before the ATC today upon the completion of their one-day police custody.

The court asked the IO the charges under which the accused were booked, to which the IO responded that the accused had beaten up the complainant while he and others were laying down the fibre optic cable on Sharea Faisal.

Farhan, who did not have legal representation, denied the claim, stating that he was “falsely accused”. He went on to say that he was only passing by and, as TMC chairman, he had a “right to ask why the area had been dug up”.

“I asked for a permission certificate, but they could not produce one,” Farhan claimed, adding that it is his job “to stop anything illegal”.

In response to the court’s enquiry on how the suspects were arrested, the IO said they had turned themselves in.

The IO then requested the judge to grant the police 14-day custody of the suspects for further investigation. However, the court approved a four-day physical remand till August 28.

It also ordered the IO to present a progress report at the next hearing.

Complainant Hafiz Sohail Jadoon had filed a first information report (FIR) at the Ferozabad police station on late Saturday night.

According to the FIR, at around 4:47pm on August 22, around 20-25 persons, including Farhan, arrived at the site of the incident in three vehicles and asked him whether he had permission to dig up Sharea Faisal.

Jadoon alleged that he told them he had all the required permissions, but some of them misbehaved with him and asked him to stop the work immediately. The complainant said that when he insisted that he had all the required no-objection certificates, they started using abusive language and beating him.

He went on to say that the men dragged him at gunpoint to a room of a nearby fuel station, keeping him in illegal confinement and continued to beat him.

In the meantime, a police team arrived and rescued the complainant. They took him to the police station, where he lodged the FIR.