Terrorism charges: Judge summons TV footage of KESC head office attack

30 union leaders and employees were booked.

KARACHI: The inclusion of section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 1997 in an FIR registered against labour union leaders and employees for an alleged attack on Karachi Electric Supply Company’s head office on August 29 was questioned in court on Monday.

The administrative judge for the ATCs in Karachi, Justice Maqbool Baqar, heard arguments from the lawyer representing the 30 accused employees and KESC’s counsel. He then deferred a decision till September 16 while summoning video footage of the incident from different television channels.

Relying on a video clip, KESC’s lawyer Khurram advocate supported the inclusion of section 7 of the ATA, saying that the accused caused damage to the property, held dozens of fasting employees hostage for many hours, injured KESC guards and also attacked the police that came to the rescue of employees stranded inside the KESC head office.

The FIR, No. 330/2011, was registered at the Defence police station on a complaint filed by KESC’s chief security officer Lt Col (retired) Asif Saeed. The men were booked according to KESC’s version under sections 147,148, 149, 186, 324, 353, 342, 435, 427 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code read with section 7 of the ATA. A second FIR was lodged at the same time and date by the state through ASI Muhammad Afzal under sections 353, 324, 435, 427 and 34 of the PPC.

But the defence’s lawyer, Syed Haider Imam Rizvi, advocate, questioned including section 7 of the ATA, saying that in the footage shown to the court by the special public prosecutor, none of the accused men were shown firing at the police or KESC officials.

They disputed the authencity of the footage and even said that footage from two television channels, Geo TV and Express News, be called. The judge allowed the request and adjourned the proceedings, directing the two channels to produce unedited copy of the footage.

The men are being kept at Central Prison Karachi.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13^th,  2011.