Gandapur granted bail in guns and ‘honey’ case

K-P minister was booked last month after contraband was recovered from his car

ISLAMABAD: A sessions court on Thursday granted bail to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) minister Ali Amin Gandapur in a weapons and liquor case.

K-P Revenue Minister Gandapur was booked by the Islamabad Police on October 31for possession and display of unlicensed weapons and liquor.

The police had recovered the weapons and liquor from Gandapur’s car outside PTI chairman Imran Khan’s residence as he came to attend the party’s planned lockdown of the capital.

The provincial minister came in a motorcade along with 300-plus PTI workers. When they reached Banigala, the police blocked them off and told them they were violating a ban on rallies and gatherings under Section 144 before directing them to disperse. When the PTI supporters accompanying Gandapur refused to disperse, the police began arresting them.

In the meantime, Gandapur got out of his car and ran into the adjacent forest. The police said they found a man sitting in Gandapur’s SUV (APL-16) holding a teargas gun. The man was identified as Allah Nawaz, a resident of DI Khan – Gandapur’s hometown. While searching the car, the police recovered a sealed bottle of high-end whisky, a bulletproof vest, two submachine guns, ammunition, and two number plates (YH-115).

The police claim that the weapons were unlicensed, while the PTI leader claims they were licensed weapons and belonged to his security guards.

He claimed the whisky bottle had honey in it.

Gandapur applied for bail-before-arrest in the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Suhail Ikram last week. The court on Thursday accepted his plea.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Gandapur’s lawyer Raja Arsalan Zaheer said all the weapons recovered from the car were either licenced or belonged to policemen deployed with the minister for his security. He said there had been two attempts on his life in the past, due to which the minister carried guns and kept a security detail with him.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2016.