Joseph Colony: 14 remanded in police custody

Counsel say their clients have been wrongly accused.

LAHORE:

An anti terrorism court (ATC) on Monday awarded four days’ physical remand of 14 people arrested for involvement in looting and burning of 112 houses in Joseph Colony on Saturday. Another 21 people were sent to jail for seven days to be available for an identification parade.

The police produced 14 people out of the 83 people nominated in the FIR and requested remand for 10 days, pleading that they needed the time to interrogate the suspects and, to recover weapons and the loot.

The lawyers for the suspects said that their clients had been implicated in a false case.

Judge Irfan Saeed awarded four days’ physical remand.

The suspects were Muhammad Amjad, Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Latif, Muhammad Afzal, Imran, Riaz Gujar, Khalil, Imran, Nadeem, Mian Saleem, Nazeer, Imran Baig, Shaikh Ibad and Rashid Ahmed.

Judge Saeed also sent 21 people to jail for identification parade and directed the police to produce them on March 18.

The families of some of the suspects staged a protest demonstration in front of the court.

Muhammad Murtaza, one of the protestors, told The Express Tribune that the police had arrested his uncle Mian Saleem rather than his namesake who was the actual suspect. He said they had told the police about the mix-up but they had ignored them and had not bothered to check his father’s name.

The FIR was registered under Sections 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy a house), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 397 (robbery or dacoity, with intent to cause death), 353 (assault to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 324 (attempt to commit qatl-i-amd), and 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of a class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) of Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of Anti Terrorism Act.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2013.