Man gets pre-arrest bail in ‘kidnapping’ case

Court seeks complete record of investigation into abduction of woman

RAWALPINDI:

A co-accused obtained pre-arrest bail after the Morgah police nominated him in the alleged kidnapping of a US-Pakistani woman.

The Morgah police have nominated Qamar Ali Shah, a young lawyer from Haripur Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as co-accused in the alleged kidnapping of Wajih Swati, who went missing on October 16 during her visit to Pakistan.

The lawyer appeared in the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Sahibzada Naqib Shehzad on Friday and obtained interim bail to escape the arrest.

The lawyer appeared before the court along with lawyers of the Rawalpindi District Bar Rawalpindi. The court granted interim bail to the co-accused and also restrained the investigation team from arresting and harassing him till December 28.

The court- however, ordered the co-accused to appear before the investigation team. The court directed the police to present a complete record of the investigation report on December 28.

According to police, the co-accused was in constant contact with the abducted US-Pakistani woman. After her disappearance, the accused kept in touch with the abductee's son on the phone, the police said demanding to investigate him.

The investigation team has already arrested Rizwan Habib, the former husband of the abductee and has obtained his four-day physical remand.

The arrested ex-husband has told the police in a statement that he did not know anything about the abductee.

He was in Kohat on the day of the incident. The investigation team has not been able to make any progress in the case despite a lapse of over months.

Meanwhile, Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench has sought a report into the investigation on December 30.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2021.