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Published 09 Nov, 2017 01:37pm

SC accepts petition seeking suspension of police officers' bail in Benazir murder case

A two-member bench of the apex court on Thursday accepted a petition filed by the mother of Benazir Bhutto's chief security officer Tauqeer Kaira to suspend bails of police officers Saud Aziz and Khurram Shahzad.

Kaira was also killed in the attack that targeted the former prime minister in 2007.

The petition, earlier rejected by the SC registrar, argues that officers Aziz and Shahzad were granted bails and posted at important positions against the rules. It says that the then city police officer (CPO) Saud Aziz and superintendent police (SP) Khurram Shahzad were suspects in the Benazir Bhutto murder case since they had cleaned the site of Bhutto's death soon after the attack.

The bench on Thursday — comprising Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan and Justice Maqbool Baqar — said that it will look into the objections made by the registrar and decide on their legality. However, it added that the petitioner did not have a case prima facie as she was not a party in the case in IHC.

Sardar Lateef Khosa, the counsel for the petitioner Rasheeda Bibi, said that his client was a party to the case and had also appeared before the divisional bench of the court. He argued that the laws were completely ignored in bail being granted to the officers.

The two officers were granted bail by the Islamabad High Court (IHC) after an anti-terrorism court (ATC) awarded both the officers 17 years imprisonment.

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