LAHORE, June 23: An anti-terrorism court started on Monday the proclamation process against PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif and a former police official for their continuous absence from the proceedings of a case in which they, along with six others, had been accused of killing five youths in a ‘staged’ police encounter. The shootout took place five years ago.

The court, who had twice issued non-bailable warrants of arrest of Shahbaz Sharif and former SHO Babar Ashraf, was informed by the process server that the warrants could not be served on them as they were not available at the quoted addresses.

While initiating the proclamation process against the two accused under section 87 CrPc, the court ordered that public notices be published in three local newspapers warning the accused of being declared proclaimed offenders, if they did not appear in court by July 27.

These notices would also be pasted outside the residences of the accused as well as on court premises. The PML-N president and the former SHO had been warned also of confiscation of their properties.

The court reprimanded the Sabzazar police station SHO for not having arrested the co-accused, Tariq Asghar, whose warrants were also issued on the last hearing. The court expressed displeasure over the SHO’s explanation that the police had failed to trace the accused. The SHO had been directed to produce the accused on June 28.

Haider and Rauf, the legal heirs to two of the deceased, moved an application in court pleading that former Lahore SSP Ahmad Raza Tahir, who was later exonerated in the final chargesheet submitted in court, should also be summoned as the co-accused.

This application would be argued by both the sides on the next date of hearing.

ASI Shamshad Ahad, whose arrest warrants were issued on the last date of hearing, appeared in court after which he was sent to the jail.

During the Monday’s proceedings, an advocate who identified himself as Rasheed Murtaza Qureshi started arguing the case on behalf of the complainant. The court, however, stopped him from pleading the case, ruling that he had neither the power of attorney to plead the case nor was he an affectee. However, the lawyer kept arguing the case which prompted the court to call the security guard, who took the lawyer out of the courtroom. Former DSP Umar Virk, SI Lala Roshan and two ASIs — Zulfiqar Ahmad and Muhammad Manzoor — who are also among the accused had already appeared in court and furnished it with bail bonds of Rs100,000 each as token of guarantee that they would not abscond the trial proceedings.

The accused allegedly had shot dead five youths — Salahuddin, Wasim, Haider, Rauf and Wakeel — in a staged police encounter at Sabzazar on April 27, 1998. The FIR lodged in March 1999 after the intervention of the Lahore High Court further stated that this encounter was staged on the orders of the then chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, who, according to complainant Saeed Salahuddin, resorted to extra-judicial killings to control crime.

The chargesheet was delayed for over an year by the police on the pretext that the original record of the case could not be produced owing to certain administrative problems. However, the chargesheet was finally put up last month after which the court started summoning the accused.