Pleading innocence: ATC to hear Mirza’s plea to transfer cases to regular courts

Over a dozen cases have been registered against the former home minister

KARACHI: The court will decide today if former home minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza can be tried under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). The disgruntled and disowned leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) is facing over a dozen cases registered at various police stations, apparently in the wake of a controversial and now escalating dispute with his former friend, PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari.

Mirza, who held the portfolio of provincial home minister between 2008 and 2011, was booked earlier this month in three cases of ransacking a police station, attacking, threatening and harassing law enforcement personnel to deter them from discharge of duty, rioting, damaging public property and looting money after he, accompanied by his guards and supporters, approached the Model police station in his native town of Badin seemingly infuriated by the arrest of his supporters.

The particular incident, which was followed by the 'forced' shutdown of markets in the area and the days' long police 'siege' of his Morjhar farmhouse has put him on the headlines of newspapers and TV channels ever since.



Several times, the police tried to arrest the former minister. The latter was, however, saved through court intervention. Apparently irked by his trial in anti-terrorism courts (ATC), Mirza has pleaded the ATC-I to transfer his cases to a regular court, contending that he is not a terrorist. "Section 7 of the ATA does not apply in Mirza's cases. He did nothing that would fall within the context of terrorism," Ashraf Samoo, the principal defence counsel told The Express Tribune. "The particular section has been put just to harass my client and create hurdles in his way."

Section 7 of the ATA is put in FIRs when the law enforcers see the case as an act of terror. Such cases are tried by ATCs. "Mirza was empty-handed when he approached the police station. He did not hit anyone, nor did he order anyone to do so," said Samoo. "But the police registered cases against him under the ATA."

The prosecution is, however, fully prepared to argue against abolishing Section 7 of the ATA from the cases. "The accused entered the police station along with his armed guards. They forced personnel out of the station and threatened them of dire consequences, if they resisted," said Muhammad Khan Burero, a special public prosecutor who has been assigned to the cases by the provincial government.

The application to transfer cases to regular courts under Section 23 of the ATA was not maintainable, he said, adding that it could only be entertained after the indictment stage.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2015.