Anti-terrorism Court.
PHOTO: EXPRESS
KARACHI: The anti-terrorism court (ATC) granted on Friday bail to the under-custody legislator Shiraz Waheed, who belongs to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), in a case relating to the alleged distribution of CDs containing anti-state speeches.
The judge directed him to furnish a surety of Rs1 million with the court. The police had arrested Waheed on August 25 this year and also claimed to have recovered 32 CDs containing anti-state speeches from the custody of the MPA.
The prosecution alleged that the MQM legislator, along with his 15 absconding accomplices, was distributing CDs among the people in Ahsanabad locality. The recovered CDs contained speeches and statements instigating people to wage war or attempt or abet to wage war against the country, it added.
Therefore, a case against them was registered under Sections 120-B, 121, 123-A, 124-A and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, at the SITE Superhighway Industrial Area police station. Initially, the administrative judge of the ATC had remanded the MQM lawmaker into police custody and later he was remanded into jail.
On Friday, the lawmaker moved an application pleading the court to grant him bail as the prosecution had failed so far to produce any concrete evidence to link his role with the commission of the alleged offence. The case still requires investigation and evidence, the lawyer added.
The special public prosecutor objected, however, to the request. Claiming that the prosecution had enough evidence available to establish the commission of the offence, the prosecutor requested the court to dismiss the bail plea. The judge, however, granted post-arrest bail to the applicant against a surety of Rs1 million.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2016.
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