LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday granted protective bail to a Punjab Assembly member (MPA) after an FIR was registered against him for attacking a police station in Faisalabad.
Justice Mazhar Iqbal Sidhu granted Rana Shoaib Idrees the bail until August 11 and directed police not to harass the MPA.
In his application, Idrees said police had been conducting raids to arrest him. He accused police of harassing him and said they might arrest him before he joined investigation.
He requested the court to direct police to let him approach a court of competent jurisdiction to get bail.
Police have said on July 19, Idrees and his 40 armed accomplices had attacked Khurarianwala police station to free some suspects. They took away Rana Zulfiqar and his three accomplices charged in a murder case. Zulfiqar had carried a bounty of Rs100,000.
They also beat some police officials, including Sub-Inspector Riyasat Ali, and vandalised the station.
Khurarianwala police have registered a case under various sections of the Anti- Terrorism Act and Pakistan Penal Code against nine named and 50 unidentified men for taking law in their hands, vandalising the police station, rioting and injuring policemen.
Those identified in the FIR were Zakariya, Muzammil Hussain, Muhammad Shabbir, Muhammad Shafiq, Abu Bakar, Muhammad Asif, Naveed Ahmad and Rana Muhammad Phool. A ‘politician’ was also mentioned in the FIR but not named.
A fact finding committee – consisting of Operations SSP Sahibzada Bilal Umar and Jaranwala SP Arif Shehbaz – later identified Idrees as key to the incident.
On the basis of the committee’s report, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had ordered the inspector general to arrest the assailants “without discrimination and without delay”.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 25th, 2014.
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