Zardari aide acquitted in illegal weapons case

Dahiri was arrested with five Kalashnikov rifles, 12 magazines, grenades in 2018

HYDERABAD: Ismail Dahiri, an aide of Pakistan Peoples Party's (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari, was acquitted by the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday.

The former special assistant to the Sindh chief minister was arrested by the Rangers with five Kalashnikov assault rifles, 12 magazines and grenades during a raid at his Nawabshah farmhouse on June 27, 2018. He was later booked by the Daulatpur police on the state's behalf for possessing illegal weapons and explosives.

On September 20, 2018, the SHC granted him bail. However, in December 2019, an anti-terrorism court in Nawabshah convicted him to imprisonment for 34 years.

Talking to the media after the SHC pronounced its judgment, Dahiri's lawyer, Farooq Naek, said that the prosecution had failed to produce any independent witnesses. "They could not even prove that the recovered weapons belonged to Dahiri, or that there was a torture cell in his farmhouse," he added.

He maintained that Dahiri's arrest was politically motivated, pointing out that the raid occured during campaigning for the 2018 general elections.

SSGC given deadline

Meanwhile, in a contempt petition about making permanent thousands of contractual employees at Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), the Sindh High Court granted two weeks to the utility company to prepare a list of employees to be regularised.

The bench's order stated that it was leniently granting the SSGC this time to proceed in the matter, failing which the contempt application would proceed.

The petition had stated that the SSGC was not complying with court orders. Last year, the company was given two months to regularise the employees, while in January, the Supreme Court had rejected its appeal in this regard.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2020.