Court grants bail to Gabol, co-accused

They are booked for of barging into Fishermen Cooperative Society Chairman's house, assaulting his servants

KARACHI: A session court court accepted on Tuesday the interim bails of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Sardar Nabil Gabol and Feroze Ali Gaba, against a surety of Rs100,000 each, to be paid till March 14.

Gabol has been accused of barging into Fishermen Cooperative Society Chairman Hafeez Abdul Bar's house and assaulting his servants. On Monday, Defence Police registered a case against Gabol and others for allegedly bursting into Bar's house and assaulting his security guard.

According to police, the complainant, Gulam Shabbir, has said in his statement that he works as a security guard at a house in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA), phase II. He said that he was on duty as per routine, when on Sunday night, at around 10:30, he heard someone beating the gate, and when he opened it, Gabol and Gaba barged in with two others and asked about Bar, saying that they had come to kill him.

According to Shabbir, Gabol snatched his repeater gun and fired twice in the air, whereas Gaba slapped him. They then entered the rooms, vandalised the house and left after returning the gun. Shabbir immediately called Madadgar-15 and Bar after the two left.

In his clarification, Gabol, addressing media persons said that his car had, in fact, accidently rammed into the gate of Bar's house. "I had tried to stop my car but the breaks did not work," he said, adding that he then took hold of the security guard's gun, as the guard was asleep, fearing that he might wake up and open fire on him. "I was unloading the gun when I accidently fire," he said. He stressed that the CCTV footage showed that he returned the gun to the guard and that he later came to know that the house was owned by Lateef Khosa.

Talking to the media, Gabol claimed that he had visited Bar's house to discuss problems faced by people in the Fisheries Cooperative Society as it located in the constituency from where he contested elections.

"I have been booked in a fake case by a man who has been accused in corruption cases," claimed Gabol.

Police officials say that two other servants, Niaz Muhammad and Zameer Hussain, are eyewitnesses to the incident.