Police fail to get remand of 44 PAT workers

LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court declined a request by the police to secure physical remand of 44 PAT workers and instead sent them to jail on 14-day judicial remand.

They are facing charges of attacking the police and pelting stones at the police, which was carrying out an operation to remove the barriers outside the MQI Secretariat in Model Town.As the proceedings started, the police produced 51 accused before ATC Judge Khalid Mahmood Ranjha and sought physical remand of 44 of them. They also requested for deletion of the name of eight workers from the FIR registered against them under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The judge, however, rejected the request and sent them to jail on judicial remand.

The accused whose names were removed from the FIR included Yameen, Hanif, Akram, Sakhi, Mujahid Hussain, Sheron and Haroon.Meanwhile, the bail applications were submitted for all the accused sent on judicial remand after which the court issued notices to the state for June 21.

Meanwhile, Chaudhry Saalik Hussain – the son of PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain – called on Dr Tahirul Qadri’s son Hussain Mohiuddin and condoled the deaths of innocent party workers. Later, the PML-Q delegation attended the funeral prayers of another MQI worker who succumbed to his injuries at a local hospital earlier in the day, bringing the death toll to 10.

Online adds: The police on Thursday declared the main suspect nominated in the case innocent due to lack of evidence, just a day after they registered a first information report (FIR) against the activists of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) for the deadly clash in Lahore.

Hussain Mohiuddin, son of Dr Tahirul Qadri, was nominated as the main accused in the FIR lodged on the complaint of Faisal Town SHO Rizwan Qadir Hashmi.The bloodshed took place outside the Central Secretariat of Minhajul Quran International in the Model Town on June 17. As many as nine people, including two women, were killed in the clash and dozens of others were injured.

According to the FIR, the police blamed the PAT workers and the leadership for the deadly melee outside the residence of Qadri. The other accused include PAT General Secretary Khurram Nawaz Gandapur and Chief Security Officer Altaf Hussain Shah. Eight unidentified gunmen and 3,000-plus activists of the PAT have also been nominated in the FIR.