Suspected bomber escapes from ATC in Karachi

Sources say accused managed to remove his handcuffs before fleeing from court premises

KARACHI: An under trial prisoner accused of possessing explosives escaped on Monday from the premises of the Anti-Terrorism Court-IX (ATC) in Karachi.

According to reports, the under trial prisoner, Tanveer alias Jambu, who was under custody of the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) was brought to the ATC from the Karachi Central Jail as a hearing in his case was fixed for today.

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The accused managed to remove his handcuffs before fleeing the court premises, sources told The Express Tribune.

Tanveer had been under investigation over possession of explosives after he was arrested at the Ibrahim Hyderi area of Karachi in late 2014.

Following his arrest, the police claimed to have recovered explosives from the possession of the accused.

According to police sources, the accused had to be presented today before Justice Farman Ali Kanatro of the ATC-IX as prosecution prepared to submit evidence against him in the court.

This is the first such incident of an under trial prisoner’s escape from the ATC during the current year.

Meanwhile, an FIR is expected to be lodged against the police guards who were involved in the negligence.

Last year, as many as three under-trial prisoners facing charges in kidnapping for ransom cases had managed to escape from the heavily guarded ATC in a security lapse within a span of five months.

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The prisoners, Muhammad Zubair, Ammar Hafeez and Arsalan Shahnawaz, had been brought to the ATC complex from the Karachi Central Prison for the hearing of their pending cases. As the hearing concluded, the three prisoners were brought back to the lock-up inside the ATC complex for their departure to prison where they managed to unlock their handcuffs and remove the metal bars of a ventilation window in the lock-up’s toilet and escaped.