KARACHI, Dec 26: Ten suspected militants were indicted on Friday by an additional district and sessions judge (east) in a case pertaining to illegal possession of explosive material.
However, the suspects pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the case. All of them are stated to be associated with banned militant outfits Tehrik-e-Islami and Lashkar-i-Muhammadi.
Judge Sanaullah Ghauri summoned the prosecution witnesses to record their testimonies against the accused person on Jan 13 and adjourned the hearing till next date.
According to the prosecution, the accused, Asif Iqbal alias K. Area Wala, Mohammad Jan alias Mustafa, Yasir Afaq alias Nasir alias Saad, Abdul Wahid alias Zubair, Ziaul Abideen alias Zain, Mohammad Asif, Inayatullah Khan alias Tauseef, Mohammad Arshad alias Asad, Mohammad Zeeshan alias Shani alias Mustan Baloch, and Mohammad Ahmed alias Waseem were planning to carry out massive attacks on political and religious leaders in the city during the Feb 18 general election to sabotage the election process.
Mohammad Hassan Hamid Amir, who is said to be the financier of the group, was shown absconder in the case.
The CID police had arrested the suspects from different parts of the city on Feb 15, 2008 and claimed the recovery of hand-grenades, TT pistols, detonators, bombs, bullets, petroleum jelly and other explosive substance from their possession.
Three cases (FIR Nos. 21/08, 22/08 and 24/08) were registered against the accused persons under Sections 4/5 of the Explosive Act, 353 of the Pakistan Penal Code and 13-D of the Arms Ordinance.
Forex scam
The District and Sessions Judge (south), Faheem Siddiqui, adjourned till Jan 9 the hearing of the bail applications of three suspects allegedly involved in a money laundering case.
The FIA officials requested for adjournment stating that four lawyers had been appointed as special public prosecutors to represent the FIA in the case but they could not get the copy of the notification due to a public holiday on Dec 25.
However, the applicants’ counsel opposed the plea stating that the FIA was using tactics to delay the proceeding of the bail applications while it had neither provided the copies of evidence to the suspects nor submitted the final charge-sheet. The FIA had arrested Abdul Munaf Kalia, his brother Hanif Kalia, and Javed Khanani on charges of illegally transferring billions of dollars abroad. Later, they were remanded in judicial custody.
The suspects were booked in a case (76/08) under Sections 5/8, 22/23 of the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1947 read with Sections 7, 8 & 20 of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Ordinance, 2007 and Sections 420, 467, 471, 477-A of the Pakistan Penal Code at the FIA crimes circle, Karachi.
BoR fire case
A district and sessions court on Friday directed the director-general of the Pakistan Armed Services Board to submit the report of an inquiry committee formed to investigate the fire that broke out in the offices of the Sindh Board of Revenue (BoR) and other government departments in March.
The ministry of defence had constituted the inquiry committee to ascertain the cause of the fire because it had also wrecked the offices of the Sindh Armed Services Board.
According to the prosecution, on March 20, 2008 a suspicious fire had wrecked the offices of the BoR, Sindh Armed Services Board (SASB) and other government offices situated in the Sindh Secretariat gutting the record of land worth billions of rupees and other important data.
On April 26, a case (FIR 243/08) was registered on the court’s order against the director-general of SASB, Mustafa Ashraf, and others under Sections 435 and 120-A/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Preedy police station on the complaint of officiating director-general SASB Abdul Rasheed.
The investigation officer of the case had submitted a Class-A report stating that he did not find any clue regarding the involvement of the suspects in the case and he would submit a charge-sheet once the evidence was collected.
However, the public prosecutor, Abdul Maroof, converted the Class-A report into Class-B (bogus) and submitted before a judicial magistrate that suspect Ashraf was implicated in the case with a mala fide intent as an inquiry committee, constituted by the defence ministry, in its report submitted on April 5 had ruled out his involvement. The case was lodged after the inquiry report which indicated that it was a false and baseless case, he stated. The judicial magistrate had agreed with his contentions and had ordered that it was not a genuine case.
The complainant, Abdul Rasheed, filed a criminal revision application before Additional District and Sessions Judge (south) Ms Hafeeza Usman against the order of the judicial magistrate.
The applicant’s counsel argued that it was an authentic case and the police did not investigative it properly. He said the order of the judicial magistrate concerned was not on merit and prayed to the court to allow the application.
The public prosecutor said that it was a fake case since an inquiry team in its report had made it clear that the SASB director-general was not involved.
He further submitted that the judicial magistrate concerned had passed an administrative order which could not be challenged in the sessions courts and could only be challenged through a constitutional petition in the high court. He requested the court to reject the application as it was not maintainable.
The court reserved its order till Jan 13 and directed the PASB director-general to submit the inquiry report on the next date of hearing.