Rioting case: Wasim Akhtar, Haider Rizvi get bail

The MQM leaders and 1,500 workers were booked for holding a rally on Nov 26.

KARACHI: A day after the issuance of non-bailable warrants for their arrest, two senior leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) obtained pre-arrest bail in a case pertaining to alleged misuse of loudspeakers and rioting.

Both the leaders — the party's nominee for mayor of Karachi Wasim Akhtar and Haider Abbas Rizvi — were given bail till January 20 against a surety of Rs10,000 each.

Soldier Bazaar police had booked the MQM leaders and workers for allegedly holding a rally without permission near the Quaid's mausoleum, blocking roads, misusing loudspeakers and rioting on November 26, 2015 protesting Rangers’ action against them.



According to the prosecution, the MQM had staged a rally and sit-in when police stopped the party members from marching towards Jinnah Courts, headquarters of Pakistan Rangers, Sindh.

They were booked under various sections of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 6/7 of the Sindh Sound (Regulation) Act, 2015, commonly known as the Loudspeaker Act.

On Wednesday, the court had issued non-bailable warrants for arrest of Dr Farooq Sattar, Akhtar, Nasreen Jalil, Wasay Jalil, Faisal Subzwari, Rizvi, Kanwar Naveed Jameel, Muhammad Hussain, Kamal Pasha and unknown party workers after the investigation officer showed them as 'absconders' in the charge-sheet. Around 1,500 to 2,000 party workers were also booked in the case.

On Thursday, the two party leaders turned up with bail applications. They argued they had no intention to abscond from the court and requested bail before arrest in order to enable them to join the trial.

Allowing their request, the court granted them interim bail till January 20 in the sum of Rs10,000 each. Both were directed to appear in the court on the next date of the hearing for the purpose of confirmation of the bail or otherwise.

SHC puts off fresh bail pleas

Meanwhile, separate bail applications were filed by Akhtar and Rizvi in the Sindh High Court (SHC) for pre-arrest bail in 25 different cases for listening to speeches of their party chief, Altaf Hussain, against the army.

A division bench, headed by Justice Sadiq Bhatti, had granted pre-arrest bail to Akhtar on Wednesday in a sedition and terror case. On Thursday, one of the two bench members was not available. Therefore, hearing was put off till Friday (today).

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2016.