KARACHI: Final charge-sheets against city mayor Waseem Akhtar and others in two more cases — one pertaining to the facilitating and supporting Altaf Hussain’s speech against the army and the other pertaining to the May 12 carnage — were submitted before the administrative judge of the antiterrorism courts on Friday.

One of them was the fifth case in row relating to the May 12, 2007 carnage in which the mayor was charge-sheeted, as the airport police had filed final charge-sheets against him and others in four cases relating to the May 12 carnage before the administrative judge of the antiterrorism courts on Thursday.

According to the final charge-sheet submitted on Friday, Waseem Akhtar participated in a party meeting on May 10, 2007 that chalked out a strategy to stop the then deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry from entering Karachi. It alleged that all major arteries and streets were closed with the installation of containers.

Kamran Farooqi, Mohammed Adnan and 45 others were absconder in the case, according to the charge-sheet.Akhtar had allegedly confessed to his involvement in the cases during the course of interrogation, the charge-sheet said, adding that accused Aslam alias Kala was arrested on his lead.

In the other charge-sheet, which was submitted by the Malir City police before the administrative judge of the ATCs on Friday, it was alleged that Akhtar supported and facilitated a hate speech by Altaf Hussain against security and law enforcement agencies on March 3. The mayor was arrested under sedition and terrorism charges, while Khwaja Izharul Hasan obtained pre-arrest bail in the case. Altaf Hussain, Dr Farooq Sattar, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui and 20 others were cited as absconders in the charge-sheet.

The administrative judge accepted both charge-sheets and sent the cases to the ATCs concerned for trial.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2016