Four accused declared absconders in Abidi’s murder case

Police say Rs800,000 was paid to carry out Abidi’s murder

Our Correspondent July 28, 2019

PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court declared four accused absconders on Saturday. The accused are implicated in Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Ali Raza Abidi's murder case.

Jail officials produced the arrested accused, Farooq, Ghazali and Abu Bakr, before the court. Another accused, Abdul Haseeb, is out on bail. The court termed Hasnain, Bilal, Ghulam Mustafa alias Kali Charran, and Faizan, as absconders in the case while issuing permanent arrest warrants of them with the directives to arrest them as soon as possible.

According to police, Rs800,000 was paid by an unidentified man for the murder of Abidi. The motorcycle used to carry out the crime was burnt.

Hate speech cases

Meanwhile, another ATC transferred the case against MQM founder from court No3 to court No1. More than 25 cases of hate speech are already under trial in court No1. The hate speech case against MQM founder was registered at Sachal police station in 2016. The next hearing will be held on August 10 and the IO's statement pertaining to the terming of the two hate speech cases, registered in Sorab Goth police station, as class A would be recorded. Farooq Sattar, Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhter, Qamar Mansoor, Amir Khan and others have been nominated in the case.

According to police, no evidence against the accused has been found regarding the facilitation of hate speech. The IO has also submitted his report about the petitioners of the case. The petitioners, Gul Khan and Hashim, don't live on the available address now and nothing could be found about them during investigation in their area.

Hearing adjourned

Another ATC expressed annoyance over witnesses not presented before the court in the case pertaining to the provision of shelter to terrorists at MQM headquarters, Nine Zero. The court directed that the witnesses be presented at the next hearing under all circumstances.

The counsels prayed the court to adjourn the hearing and said that the lawyers are carrying out a boycott over the Pakistan Bar Counsel's appeal and they could not proceed with the cases today.

The court accepted the lawyers' request and adjourned hearing indefinitely.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th, 2019.