KARACHI, June 23: Justice Rana M. Shamim of the Sindh High Court on Monday allowed bail to a murder accused in the sum of Rs200,000 and a personal bond in the like amount.

The accused, Hasnain Raza, is facing trial before an anti-terrorism court on charges of killing a policeman.

According to the prosecution, Hasnain Raza, Chaudhry Zulfiqar, Raja Shafiq and Ghulam Rasul opened fire on a police party that raided their house in Gulistan-i-Jauhar on July 4, 2007. Assistant sub-inspector Imam Din died of bullet wound on the spot while head constable Mohammad Mumtaz of the anti-car lifting unit was injured. All the four accused escaped. However, Hasnain Raza was arrested after a chase. He was first charge-sheeted before a sessions court but the case was later transferred to an anti-terrorism court.

The applicant’s counsel, M. Irfan, submitted that there was no evidence to link the accused with the commission of the offence. He surrendered a licensed gun to the police but it was still to be established whether the same weapon was used in the murder as the empties recovered from the scene had not been sent to the ballistic expert, he argued.

A division bench of the Sindh High Court comprising Justices Yasmin Abbasy and Bin Yamin, meanwhile, issued notices to the co-operatives registrar and the city district government officer in-charge of co-operation for June 30 in a petition challenging the conduct of Rizvia Co-operative Housing Society elections on July 7.

The petitioners submitted through advocate Amir Aziz Khan that the city government official concerned appointed by the high court to hold the polls under the society’s by-laws was committing serious irregularities. He was seeking nominations for the entire managing committee membership while the by-laws permitted polls for one-third of the committee’s members every year. The members were elected for three years and one-third of them retired by rotation every year.

Secondly, the petitioners said, final list of the voters has notbeen put on the notice-boards and the candidates do not know the names of the electors.