KARACHI, Aug 19: An anti-terrorism court has declared six workers of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Aalmi, allegedly involved in the June 14 car bomb attack at the US consulate and attempt on the life of President Pervez Musharraf.

The court began the proceedings of the two cases inside the Central Prison, Karachi, on Monday.

Judge Aley Maqbool Rizvi of the ATC-1 fixed Tuesday for formal indictment of the self-styled chief of his own Aalmi faction of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen, Mohammed Imran, and the co-accused in the two cases.

The Aalmi chief, along with his deputy, Mohammed Hanif, and finance secretary, Mohammed Ashraf, are facing the charges of bomb blast near the US consulate that killed 11 people. Those declared absconders by the ATC were Sharib son of Shamim Ahmed, Kamran son of Abdus Salam, Mohammed Jameel son of Mohammed Usman, Naveed Hasan son of Colonel Waheed, Habibullah Khattak son of Imanullah Khattak and Mustafa, a resident of Naval Colony.

The three interned leaders of the banned outfit and an inspector of the rangers have also been charged with an abortive attempt to blow up the president’s motorcade in the limits of Airport police.

The same set of the Aalmi workers, excluding Mustafa, was declared absconders along with another worker, Mohammed Amir son of Mohammed Hamid, in the conspiracy case.

Khwaja Naveed Ahmed, the counsel for accused Mohammed Ashraf, said the judge declared the Aalmi workers absconders after Inspector Dawood, the process server, informed the court that there was no possibility of their arrest in near future as no clue to their whereabouts had been found.

They were accused of stuffing a Suzuki vehicle with explosives in an attempt to blow up the motorcade of President Musharraf near the Quaid-i-Azam airport.

The defence counsel said they had first reached the ATC-1 in the morning and were told that the proceedings of the cases against their clients would be held inside the jail.

Khwaja Naveed said the defence counsel reached the courtroom at the Central Prison, where the four accused were produced.

Raza Ali Abidi appeared for prime accused Imran, Abdul Waheed Katpar for accused Hanif and a junior to Ashraf Kazi for Inspector Waseem Akhtar.

The judge would frame formal charges on the accused at 10:30am on Tuesday.

Police had submitted the final chargesheets in the two cases on Aug 3 before the administrative judge of the ATCs, Justice Shabbir Ahmed, who assigned the trial to the ATC-2.

The provincial authorities notified on Aug 13 the jail trial of the workers of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Aalmi and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, involved in over 30 cases.