KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Friday reserved its verdict on the bail application of a suspect facing charges of having explosive substances and illicit weapons.
The ATC-III reserved the order on Muhammad Ilyas’s bail application after the defence and state counsel concluded their final arguments.
Ilyas has been charged with having explosive material and unlicenced weapons in his possession when his house was raided by the police in Boat Basin in June. According to the police they found two hand grenades and a TT pistol at his residence.
The defence counsel claimed that the police had made a baseless and false case against his client, adding that all the witnesses were policemen and no private witnesses were included in the case. Thus, he said, testimonies of policemen were not acceptable.
The district public prosecutor, Abdul Maroof, opposed these arguments and said that hand grenades and a pistol were recovered from his house at the time of arrest. A private citizen, he added, could not be a witness in this case as he was arrested after midnight.
While opposing the bail plea, Maroof said that testimonies of the policemen were reliable. He added that no bogus cases have been filed against the suspect as there was no enmity between the complainant and suspect.
After hearing arguments from both sides, Judge Saleem Raza Baloch reserved the verdict on the bail plea for July 21.
The suspect was booked in two cases - 225 and 226/14 under section 4/5 of the Explosive Substance Act, section 23 1 (a) of the Sindh Arms Act, 2013, read with section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 at the Boat Basin police station.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 12th, 2014.
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