Freedom for Afaq Ahmed, the chief of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement, hangs by the thread of a technicality. He is fighting for bail in one last case, much of whose outcome depends on what a trial court decides next Wednesday.
The MQM-Haqiqi chief has requested bail in two courts - the Sindh High Court that heard him on Friday and in the case’s trial court, which is Anti-Terrorism Court II, that will hear him next Wednesday.
It was this double application that the prosecutor objected to at the Sindh High Court hearing on Friday. He argued that the request for bail filed with the SHC was not justified and he requested for it to be thrown out.
The prosecutor also objected to Syed Iqbal Kazmi appearing in court. Kazmi, a social worker who runs his own non-profit, signed up as Afaq’s attorney. As he is not qualified and a member of the bar, this means that Kazmi is not Afaq’s lawyer. But as an attorney, he is allowed to stand in for Afaq if he cannot make it from jail to appear in court.
The prosecutor argued that if Kazmi were allowed to appear for Afaq, it would set a precedent that would lead to and encourage unending litigation through such “legally constituted attorneys”.
To this Kazmi retorted that two benches of the SHC had rejected these kind of arguments and that he was allowed to appear for Afaq. Kazmi then turned to the double bail applications and argued that the SHC had the jurisdiction as it was misled by information provided by the police in the case.
The top police officers had sworn that there were no new cases against Afaq but then this 10-year-old case surfaced just as Afaq was being released on bail in what was perceived as the last case against him. Kazmi argued therefore that the ATC II case was kept suppressed by the state with mala fide intention. The SHC had the jurisdiction to hear the request for bail as that police report was filed in the SHC and not the ATC II.
Justice Faisal Arab and Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar heard both sides and decided to put off the matter till November 25, after the ATC hears the case.
This effectively means that Afaq Ahmed is under arrest for the ten-year-old alleged kidnapping case as it goes to trial before ATC II. The other men who were named in it have been already acquitted.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 19th, 2011.
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