LAHORE, July 24: PML-N president Shahbaz Sharif and former SHO Babar Ashraf Ansari, the two proclaimed offenders in a murder case, were issued notices on Thursday by an anti-terrorism court on an application moved for the confiscation of their properties.

While issuing arrest warrants for the two accused on the last date of hearing owing to their persistent absence from the trial, the court had declined complainant Saeeduddin’s verbal request to confiscate their properties and had asked him to move a formal application in this regard.

Complainant’s counsel Aftab Ahmad Bajwa requested the court in writing to issue directions under Section 88 CrPC to the police concerned to furnish it with the entire information regarding the properties of Shahbaz Sharif and Babar Ashraf. The state was also issued notice on this application for August 2.

Former DSP Umar Virk, SI Lala Roshan and ASIs Shamshad Ahmad, Zulfiqar Ahmad and Muhammad Manzoor, who are among the other five accused in the case, have already appeared in the court and furnished bail bonds of Rs100,000 each.

The accused had shot dead five youths — Salahuddin, Wasim, Haider, Rauf, Wakil — in a staged police encounter in Sabzazar on April 27, 1998. The FIR lodged in March 1999 after the intervention of the Lahore High Court stated that the encounter was staged on the orders of the then chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif.

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