RAWALPINDI, April 2: The special anti-terrorism court No 1 here on Friday granted bail to former MNA Nawab Amanullah Khan Sial, one of the three accused in Maulana Azam Tariq murder case.

Judge Manzoor Ahmed Mirza granted the bail which is subject to depositing of Rs2 million surety amount by the accused.

Mr Sial has been admitted to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) after he suffered from heart problem. He had also been kept in the intensive care unit there for some time.

Mr Sial's defence counsel, Zulfiqar Ali Naqvi, told Dawn that the former MNA would be released from Pims on Saturday evening as they were scheduled to deposit the surety amount in the court early in the morning. He said the condition of Mr Sial was still not satisfactory as his doctors had advised him complete rest. That is why the police could not produce him before the judge on Friday.

Earlier, Zulfiqar Ali Naqvi had contended before the court that Mr Sial be granted bail as chief of the banned Islami Tehrik Pakistan (ITP), Allama Sajid Ali Naqvi, a co-accused in the case, had already been granted bail by the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench.

He also contended before the court that Mr Sial's arrest notices issued by the court had been dispatched on the wrong postal address.

He maintained that Mr Sial was living in Jhang city while arrest warrants were issued by the court on an address in Shahpur village, Jhang district, where Mr Sial had never resided.

He further contended before the court that the statements recorded by the two prosecution witnesses from Jhang, Imtiaz and Imran Shaikh, were baseless.

The witnesses, he said, had recorded their statements 19 days after the killing of the chief of the outlawed Millat-i- Islamia Pakistan (MIP), Maulana Azam Tariq, his three guards and driver in the jurisdiction of Golra police on October 6 last year.

In their statements, both the witnesses had maintained that Sajid Naqvi along with Mr Sial and Sibtain Kazmi, the other two accused in the case, had planned the murder of Azam Tariq at the residence of the head of Jamaat-i-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, in Islamabad. Mr Naqvi, they said, was attending a meeting of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal there.

It may be recalled here that another accused, Sibtain Kazmi, is still at large in the case.