Islamabad - Hearing of bail pleas post October 4th PTI protest in which 82 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government employees including 62 members of KP police, 18 Rescue 1122 officials, two security officials, two members of parliament KP Anwar Zeb, Malik Liaqat and sisters of Imran Khan - Aleema and Uzma Khan - was adjourned because of unavailability of case record on Tuesday at Anti-Terrorism Court l, Islamabad.
Anti-Terrorism Court -I Judge Abul Hasnaat Zulqarnain conducted hearing of the case. The case was called three times in the courtroom and Prosecutor Raja Naveed Hussain informed the court that investigation officer of the case was in Dera Ismail Khan and he had the record with him.
Judge Zulqarnain granted permission to Barrister Salman Safdar for advancing his arguments for Aleema and Uzma Khan. Barrister Salman Safdar read the contents of FIR and argued before the court that there were 605 people in this FIR including Imran Khan, Ali Amin Gandapur, Amir Mughal, Aleema and Uzma Khan.
He argued that this FIR will never see light of the day and no challans will ever come to the court on this FIR. “They’ve made mountain out of a mole hill,” argued Barrister Safdar. He further argued that no person was injured or killed and there’s no CCTV footage available of the incident. He declared FIR as political victimization and said this was the case of further inquiry. Aleema and Uzma Khan were arrested on October 4 from Blue Area, Islamabad and sent to physical custody of police for 8 days by the court and later ordered to send in judicial lockup on October 12. They were shifted to District Jail Jhelum and bail hearing was fixed for October 19. None of ATC Judges appeared in court on October 19 and bail hearing was fixed for yesterday.
Naureen Niazi, husband of Uzma Khan, son of Aleema Khan who arrived from UK, and other family members of Imran Khan were present in the courtroom on Tuesday along with PTI lawyers. Judge Abual Hasnaat Zulqarnain waited for the record to arrive but at late afternoon he appeared in courtroom and remarked that he’s adjourning the bail hearing till October 25th for Aleema and Uzma Khan and October 24th for others and will grant bail to all the accused if record won’t arrive on next date of hearing. Earlier, Azam Swati was granted bail in one of the cases along with 19 PTI workers by ATC-I Judge Abul Hasnaat Zulqarnain.
