IHC seeks record of case lodged at Margalla police station. PHOTO: EXPRESS
In a case pertaining to the seditious, provocative and anti-Pakistan speech by MQM founder Altaf Hussain to party workers outside the Karachi Press Club in 2015, ATC Judge Shahrukh Arjumand recorded statements of witnesses.
He subsequently also issued summons to other witnesses and directed the Margalla police to submit a report over the case they had registered.
The capital’s police have so far registered five cases against the MQM founder at the Secretariat, Bhara Kahu, Kohsar, Golra Sharif and Margalla police stations.
The cases were registered under Sections 121 (waging or attempting to wage war or abetting waging of war against Pakistan), 120-B (punishment of criminal conspiracy), 123 (concealing with intent to facilitate design to wage war), 124-A (sedition), 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot if rioting be committed; if not committed) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 1997.
On Friday, the witnesses in their statements told the court that they had heard the MQM chief’s “provocative speech” on their televisions and found it to be against Pakistan and the army.
On July 14, 2015, Tahir Ali Nawazish had approached the Secretariat police station to register a case against Hussain after he made a vitriolic telephonic address to his supporters in Karachi.
After Hussain allegedly launched into a diatribe against the military establishment, raised anti-Pakistan slogans and threatened to cause strife in Karachi, the complainant decided to take action, his FIR states.
Earlier, one of the police stations had submitted a report to the court stating that the suspect – the exiled leader of MQM – has absconded to England fearing arrest and hence could not be arrested. Hussain has lived in London since a military operation was launched against him and his party in 1992. He is now a British citizen.
Following his inflammatory speech, Hussain, though, had apologised to the former army chief General (retired) Raheel Sharif and Rangers Director General Maj-Gen Bilal Akber for his vitriolic speech in which he referred to Pakistan as a “cancer for the entire world”.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 8th, 2017.
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