Bus burning case: ST leaders freed for lack of evidence

The man who registered the case and eyewitnesses said they weren’t the right men.

KARACHI: All three leaders of the Sunni Tehreek were freed on Tuesday because the police could find no evidence that they were involved in setting a bus on fire on the day people protested the death sentence against Mumtaz Qadri.

Central leader Shahid Ghauri, members Mubeen Qadri and Nadeem Qadri were released by Sindh High Court’s Justice Maqbool Baqar, who is also the administrative judge for the anti-terrorism courts.

The men were produced in the afternoon as the police custody limit ran out.

Case officer SI Nasir Lodhi said that they did not find any evidence against them. The men were put in an identification parade but neither the man who registered the case, nor the eyewitnesses said they were behind the arson attacks.

Their lawyer Naeem Qureshi argued that they could not have done it as they were arrested by the Pakistan Rangers from the party’s central office six or seven hours before the attack.

The case was registered by the Orangi police by a man named Madad Khan who owned the Mazda coach. He said that he received news that people from the area had thrown inflammable material onto the vehicle and set it alight.

He named Shakeel alias Fauji and Mehtab Qadri in the case on the basis of information given to him by eyewitnesses.

He also alleged six Sunni Tehreek men were involved but they were not arrested. According to the arrest memo, they were picked up from Urdu Chowk while having tea based on help from a police “collaborator”.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2011.