KARACHI, June 26: An anti-terrorism court acquitted on Monday four men in a case pertaining to the printing of “objectionable pamphlets” against President Pervez Musharraf.

Judge Feroze Mehmood Bhatti of the ATC-2 exonerated the defendants from all charges as the prosecution miserably failed to prove its case against them.

Shahid Mehmood Shaikh, Syed Mohammed Munawar Saleh, Ameer Ahmed and Mohammed Arshad were prosecuted under Section 11 (f) (w) of the Anti-Terrorist Act for printing and publishing material against the president.

According to prosecution, the four defendants were members of the banned Hizbul Tehreer and they were arrested on April 28 by the Nazimabad police during a raid at the Sharp Printing Press. The police also claimed to have seized over 6,000 objectionable pamphlets from them.

The prosecution, represented by Ghulam Qadir Rajput, examined in all three prosecution witnesses, who were all police officials, though five PWs were cited in the final charge-sheet.

The defendants were represented by Wazir Hussain Khoso, Sultan Mehmood Khan, Latif Qureshi and Ali Mohammed Junejo.

Wazir Hussain Khoso, counsel for Ameer Ahmed, said the defendants were implicated in the case by the police to show their “efficiency” to the government and their superiors. “It was a false case against my client as he had nothing to do with the banned outfit”, he added.

The prosecution also failed to bring on record even a shred of evident to prove the affiliation of the defendants with the banned outfit.

Besides, the defence counsel also disputed the time and place of the arrest of Ameer Ahmed and Mohammed Arshad.

He submitted to the court that the defendants were not arrested from the printing press as claimed by the police. Instead, he submitted, they were arrested from there respective houses on April 27.

The defence counsel also stated that the families of the defendant had immediately sent telegrams to different authorities regarding their arrest. He also placed on record the copies of the telegrams and their original receipts.