Foreseeing arrest: SHC grants Mirza protective bail on ‘ransacking’ charges

Zulfiqar Mirza was booked in four FIRs registered under sections of the anti-terrorism act.

HYDERABAD/ KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) granted on Monday 'protective bail' to former home minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza in four criminal cases pertaining to the attack and ransacking of a police station in district Badin on Sunday.

A division bench, headed by Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi, which granted the bail in the sum of Rs100,000 each, ordered him to surrender before the trial court by May 6.

The estranged Pakistan Peoples Party leader had approached the high court in Karachi, seeking protective bail as he apprehended his arrest following the posting of SSP Rao Anwar in Badin. The petitioner, who is currently at his farmhouse in Badin, had filed the bail applications through his lawyer, Ashraf Samon.

Samon alleged that the Badin police had, on Sunday, tried to arrest and kidnap Mirza, his companions and well-wisher Nadeem Mughal, a Badin businessman. Mirza went to Model Town police station to register an FIR against the culprits but the officials did not do so despite giving an assurance, he claimed, adding that they lodged four 'false' FIRs against the petitioner and his other supporters under the provisions of the anti-terrorism act.

Samon said his client is present at the Mirza Farm in Badin, where the police force from four other districts have been called in to arrest the petitioner.

Rao Anwar's posting

The PPP leader said he had filed a petition with the SHC in which he had disclosed the facts about threats to his life due to enmity with Asif Ali Zardari, the PPP co-chairperson. After the incident, the Sindh government has posted Rao Anwar as SSP of Badin district with immediate effect, merely with an intention to arrest and humiliate the petitioner and his companions in false cases, the lawyer claimed, adding that SSP Anwar is Zardari's right-hand man.

The court was pleaded to direct the provincial government and the police not to arrest Mirza and his companions in connection with the four FIRs lodged till his surrender before the competent court of law, including the high court.

The bench granted protective bail to Mirza with directions to surrender before the trial court by May 6, when the concession of bail will cease.

Meanwhile, Badin braved the aftershock of Sunday's violence, which saw Mirza forcing shops of some traders to close and allegedly assaulting a police station. The markets remained shut on Monday on the strike call of Mirza's supporters. But the fear of eruption of further hostilities between supporters of the two sides also contributed to the shut down.

"We decided not to arrest Mirza but only his aides," a police official who attended the meeting of top police officials on Sunday night in Badin told The Express Tribune. "We wanted to avoid violence."

Thousands of Mirza's supporters, hundreds of them reportedly armed, gathered at Mirza's farmhouse by Sunday evening. The posture gave an impression that any attempted raid for his arrest would be repulsed.

Mirza himself gave weight to the apprehensions by telling some news channels that he will resist any raid by SSP Anwar or Badin SSP Khalid Mustafa Korai. "If Korai came here, either I will be taken out of this farmhouse in a coffin or he will be."

According to family sources, his wife MNA Fehmida Mirza asked her husband to wait for her arrival in Badin by Monday evening for consultation before announcing any decision.

At least eight aides of Mirza have been arrested in two days in separate raids. The Sindh High Court Bar Association (SHCBA), Hyderabad, has condemned nomination of former Badin District Bar Association's president Essa Mallah in an FIR with Mirza. SHCBA president Advocate Ghulamullah Chang, after the bar's meeting, alleged that the police are harassing the lawyer. He warned that if Mallah's name was not removed from the FIR, the lawyers will start protesting.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 5^th, 2015.