PTI leader, brothers granted bail in LG poll violence case

An anti-terrorism court on Thursday granted bail to PTI leader Amjad Afridi and his two brothers arrested for allegedly beating a presiding officer and snatching ballots from him in the recently held local government elections in Karachi.

The ATC judge directed Amjad, a PTI candidate, and his two brothers — Babar Afridi and Danish — to furnish a surety of Rs50,000 each to secure bail. The applicants’ lawyer Zahoor Mehsud argued that a false and fabricated case was lodged against them by the police in connivance with the ruling PPP. He claimed that the three brothers were in fact attacked by activists of the rival candidate, as a result of which they suffered injuries. One brother lost his eye while the other had his arm broken, he added.

The counsel contended that the case didn’t attract sections of the anti-terror law and the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and pleaded with the judge to grant his clients bail. The case was lodged at the Saeedabad police station under sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 324 (attempted murder), 392 (punishment for robbery) and other sections of the PPC.