Terrorists’ facilitation case: Indictment of all suspects likely on October 1

ATC reserves verdict on Qadir Patel’s bail plea

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) reserved on Saturday its order on the bail plea of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Qadir Patel nominated as a co-accused in the terrorists’ facilitation case against Dr Asim Hussain.

PPP’s Patel, Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Wasim Akhtar, Rauf Siddiqui and Pak Sarzameen Party’s Anis Kaimkhani were sent to jail in July this year after their interim bail was rejected by the same court.

They have been accused of asking favours from Dr Asim, who runs Ziauddin Hospitals, to treat suspected terrorists injured in clashes, or otherwise, at his private health facilities while screening them off from law enforcers.

Patel, who pleaded the case himself, argued that there was no proof that he called Dr Asim, who has also served as the petroleum minister in the previous PPP federal government, for such things.

He asserted that the charges against him are malafide and he did not know the reason he has been accused of the crime. In support of his claim, Patel said he was out of the country when the case was lodged and he returned just to prove his innocence.

Meanwhile, the jail authorities submitted a report regarding Dr Asim’s poor health and informed that he could not be brought for the same reason. Other suspects were, however, present in the court.

The ATC-II judge, after reserving the order on the PPP leader’s bail plea, adjourned the hearing till October 1. The court is likely to indict all the suspects at the next hearing.

Akhtar, who is the mayor of Karachi, also held an informal talk with the media outside the courtroom, insisting that he should be granted bail in view of the ‘betterment of the city’.  “Maybe I did even do something wrong in the past,” he said, adding that the time to move forward has come.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2016.