Orient labs: 12 attorneys appear for victims’ families

June 20 fixed for arguments on post arrest bail petition of Zafar Iqbal.

LAHORE:

Additional District and Sessions Judge Malik Tariq Mehmood Zargham on Tuesday fixed June 20 for arguments on Orient Labs director Zubair Iqbal’s post-arrest bail petition. Twelve attorneys submitted letters of attorneys on behalf of families whose relatives had been killed or injured in the building’s collapse.

The petitioner’s lawyer said the building’s collapse was an accident. He asked the court to accept Iqbal’s post-arrest bail petition. Twelve counsel submitted documents of attorneys on behalf of families whose relatives, Shakeela Akbar, Ghulam Abbas, Waris Ali and Musarrat Zafar, had been killed and those, Shumyela Anwar, Sumra Anwar, Munib Ahmed, Faisal Abbas, Muhammad Amin, Saqib Mushtaq, Muhammad Fayaz and Muhammad Bilal, who had been injured.

The petitioner in his bail petition said he was innocent and had been wrongly implicated by the police so he could be blackmailed and harassed.

The petitioner’s lawyer said his client was a respectable businessman and had no motive to have committed the crimes he was charged with. He said no evidence had been obtained from Iqbal to link him to the collapse.

He said necessary ingredients of Section 302/324 of the Pakistan Penal Code were missing. And all the other offences were bail-able, he added. He said the petitioner was entitled to the concession of bail as a matter of right.

Two convicted, sentenced to death

Additional District and Sessions Judge Tariq Mehmood Zargham on Tuesday convicted two men of murder and sentenced them to death.

The court found Assad Majeed and Maulvi Munir Hussain guilty of the charges of shooting and killing Muhammad Anwar and shooting and injuring Najma over an old enmity in 2010. Apart from the death sentences, the two were handed jail terms of seven years each and fines of Rs60,000 each.

Published In The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2012.