LAHORE, Oct 19: A judicial magistrate at Cantonment courts on Friday granted post-arrest bail to Ali Imran Yousaf, son-in-law of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, involved in a Defence “bakery torture” case.

The magistrate directed the accused to furnish bail bonds of Rs50,000 and a surety bond of the like amount.

On Thursday, the magistrate had sent the accused to jail on judicial remand and issued notices to the police and the complainant on the bail petition. However, on Friday, no body appeared on behalf of the complainant to oppose the bail.

The magistrate briefly heard the arguments of Advocate Rana Asadullah Khan, counsel for the accused, and admitted the bail petition.

Later Yousaf was released from the Camp Jail around 3pm after the Robkar (release order) was submitted to the jail authorities. A large number of PML-N workers were present outside the jail to welcome Yousaf.

Yousaf had courted arrest after the Defence-B police registered a case against him on charges of abetment under Section 109 of the PPC. The chief minister had also directed his son-in-law to join police investigation after a CCTV footage of the incident proved that the security guards of Yousaf  had tortured the employee of the bakery.

The victim (Irfan) had refused to deliver a cake to a woman customer, stated to be Yousaf’s wife.

Owner stops visiting bakery

The owner of the bakery in DHA has stopped visiting his business point to avoid ‘teasing remarks’ of the customers and unwanted queries by the media and activists of political parties since the incident attained prominence in national media.

“A majority of customers are placing order of ‘cake’, the same product demanded reportedly by the daughter of the Punjab chief minister during her first visit to the bakery on Sunday,” Sweet Tooth shift manager Umer Maqbool told Dawn on Friday.

He said the cake had never been the part of their on-sale items, but the customers kept on demanding the same just to ‘tease’ the administration.

The shift manager said bakery owner Umer Husain and employee Irfan who was attacked by a group of men and tortured publicly had stopped visiting the bakery to avoid embarrassment. Irfan is a resident of Azad Kashmir.

Umer Husain is taking rest at his Model Town residence while panicked Irfan has proceeded on a week-long leave in the backdrop of the high profile incident.

He said four other employees of the bakery had resigned following the torture of Imran by armed men.

Umer Maqbool said the owner was worried over the financial loss he suffered since the incident of torture attracted media attention. He said the average daily sale had dropped.

Cantonment Division Investigation SP Fida Husain dispelled the impression that the bakery owner had been forced to go into hiding.

He said the investigation of the case was yet under process and no concrete evidence of involvement of chief minister’s son-in-law Ali Imran had been found so far.