LAHORE, Dec 14: The Mozang police arrested renowned folk singer Akram Rahi after the Lahore High Court rejected his pre-arrest bail application in an alleged fraud on Tuesday.

Justice Tariq Javed dismissed Rahi's bail application which was earlier rejected by an additional district and sessions judge. The police arrested Rahi as soon as he came out of the courtroom.

The police had lodged an FIR against Rahi some time ago under sections 420 and 468 of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of Muhammad Akram Bodla. The complainant had accused Rahi and his four accomplices, including Akram Sabir and Ramzan Qadri, of trying to get his three-kanal house in Model Town transferred by preparing fake documents.

The complainant said Rahi also made efforts to get a court decree against him by trying to get the case decided in his favour one-sidedly. He said as soon as he came to know about the suit he joined the proceedings of the case that was dismissed by the court finally.

Muhammad Shah, counsel for Bodla, said as documents prepared by the accused proved fake, the court ordered registration of FIR against them. Except Rahi, other three accused were still at large, he said. CJ:

LHC Chief Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry says the concept of severe punishment in Islam is only for the sake of eliminating crime rate.

He was talking to delegations from Sargodha, Bhalwal, Shahpur and Gojra here on Tuesday.

The bar representatives urged the chief justice to set up a LHC bench in Sargodha to facilitate lawyers. The CJ, however, said the matter was pending and whatever the court would decide, the administrative committee would act upon it.