KARACHI: The Muttahida Qaumi Move­ment leadership in London, which has been found in disagreement with MQM Pakistan over different issues since the Aug 22 speech of Altaf Hussain, demanded immediate release of city mayor and senior party leader Wasim Akhtar.

In a statement issued on Saturday, MQM-London leader Nadeem Nusrat demanded that the government release the elected mayor so he could serve Karachi and take up municipal challenges of the country’s largest city.

“We all know that fake cases were registered against Waseem Akhtar on a political basis,” he said.

“The Karachi mayor is being targeted only for his political association. Due to his fair and honest political stand, the city is being victimised and deprived of all municipal developments.” Meanwhile, an antiterrorism court on Saturday deferred the pronouncement of its order on the bail application of city mayor Waseem Akhtar in three cases related to the May 12 carnage.

The ATC, which had earlier fixed the pronouncement of order for Saturday, would pronounce it on Sept 29.

The mayor had earlier obtained protective bail in all these cases from the Sindh High Court. He had moved his bail application after the final charge sheets against him and others before the administrative judge of the antiterrorism courts which assigned the trial of the accused persons to the ATC.

The Airport police filed the charge sheet in the cases before the judge and submitted that as many as 15 accused persons, including the city mayor, Mohammad Aslam alias Kala, Anwarul Hasan, Faisal Wahab, Azhar Quershi and Mohammed Hanif, were arrested in the case, while 16 others including Shujaat Ali Hashmi and Umair Hassan Siddiqui were absconding.

According to the charge sheet, accused Waseem Akhtar had confessed to his involvement in the cases during the course of interrogation. The charge sheet said that on his lead, accused Aslam alias Kala was arrested.

Earlier, his counsel Barrister Khawaja Naveed forwarded his arguments in the bail applications in four cases against Mr Akhtar before the ATC.

ATC defers order on Waseem Akhtar’s bail plea in May 12 carnage cases till 29th

He contended that Mr Akhtar was not named in any of the FIRs, nor was he assigned any specific role in the cases. Besides, the counsel added, nothing was recovered from his client.

He asked the court to grant him bail and order his release accordingly.

Custodial death case

Meanwhile, jail authorities submitted a report in an ATC on the death of a worker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in custody on Aug 28.

The report said that Mehmood Khan was a diabetic patient and died because a wound in his leg worsened.

The MQM worker, a fire brigade department employee, was booked in as many as seven cases pertaining to May 12, 2007 riots and possessing illicit weapons registered at the Airport and Surjani Town police stations.

The report said the suspect was admitted to a government hospital on Aug 25, but three days later he died during his treatment.

The jail authorities also asked the court to remove Khan’s name from the cases he was implicated in, as a formality to maintain the prosecution data.

The judge after approving the report, summoned the investigation officer of the case to submit his comments on Oct 5.

Khan was arrested on Aug 22 following an attack of the MQM workers on two media houses.

Zahra Shahid murder case

An ATC again summoned the driver of slain Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Zahra Shahid Hussain to record his testimony as an eyewitness.

The PTI leader was shot dead outside her residence in Defence Housing Authority on May 18, 2013.

The ATC judge issued notices to the driver again after he failed to ensure his presence despite being put on notice to appear in court.

The judge warned that if he did not make it to the court on next hearing, non-bailable warrants would be issued for procuring his attendance in the court.

The driver is stated to have witnessed the killing as he was at the crime scene when some assailants disembarked their motorcycles and shot at Ms Hussain while she was sitting in her car at the doorstep of her house.

Four suspects, namely Zahid Abbas Zaidi, Rashid alias Tailor, Kaleemullah and Irfan alias Lamba, were indicted in June 2015 after the police submitted a charge-sheet against them.

According to the charge-sheet, the arrested suspects in collusion of their absconding accomplices, Junaid Bukhari, Tariq Nawaz and Asif alias Ganja, made plot of the killing and executed the same.

The prosecution cited as many as 20 witnesses including the victim’s driver.

Published in Dawn September 25th, 2016