The complainant entered the court during the proceedings and started wailing. She said that she suspected Justice Malik of being biased in favour of the criminals. The court asked her to leave. As she continued shouting, the security personnel forcibly took her out of the courtroom.
Rahat Khatana, widow of Chaudhry Javed Iqbal, former nazim of Faisalabad, appeared before the court in a bail application of one of the convicts in the murder of her husband. She said that the LHC had accepted the bail application of Ashfaq. Seeing her cursing the legal system and the judges, Justice Malik sent the bail petition of the accused to the chief justice for fixing before some other judge. Out of the court, Ms Khatana said that her brother, Dilshad, had been kidnapped by the offenders, who were pressuring her to take the complaint back. The court officials, she alleged, marked her absent, despite of her presence at the previous hearing.
Advocate Syed Abbas Ali on Thursday volunteered to be her counsel. He said that the prosecutors, instead of favouring the complainant, were taking steps against her.
Rahat Khatana’s husband was elected UC nazim from NA 286, Faisalabad. In 2005, she said, he was murdered by Hamid Ali, Tahir alias Tara, Ashfaq and five others during local elections. The sessions court sentenced and convicted Hamid Ali for 25 years in jail and Ashfaq for 30 years. Tahir, she said, was a proclaimed offender.
She said that in June 2010 Justice Waqar Hassan Mir granted bail to Hamid Ali, and now Ashfaq had applied for a bail with a similar plea.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 5th, 2010.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ