Land dispute case: Arrest warrant for Captain Safdar, other cancelled

MANSEHRA: A local court on Thursday cancelled the non-bailable arrest warrants for the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) leader Captain (Retd) Mohammad Safdar Awan and his brother MNA Mohammad Sajjad Awan in a land dispute case with justice (Retd) Ijaz Afzal Khan.

The court also summoned both parties Captain Safdar and Ijaz Afzal Khan to appear before it on January 8 next year. “Captain Safdar and his brother MNA Sajjad have not been appearing in the court in this illegal dispossession case and the judge had issued their non-bailable warrants, which are now cancelled after they appeared before him,” advocate Shahnawaz Iqbal, the counsel for justice Ijaz Afzal Khan and his family, told reporters here.

The judge, Arbab Sohail, cancelled the warrants for Safdar and Sajjad and their younger brother Mohammad Tahir Awan.

Iqbal said that Captain Safdar and his brothers had started construction on 65 kanals of the shamilat (community land) and when they were restricted by his clients they got registered an FIR against them with the City Police Station earlier this year.

While the MNA Mohammad Sajjad in his FIR had stated that he was constructing the boundary wall of his family’s 10 kanal piece of land owned by his brother Mohammad Safdar, the son-in-law of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, when the gunmen of justice (retd) Ijaz Afzal Khan, his son Saif Ali Khan and brother Sajjad Afzal Khan opened fire on him.

He said that the case was lodged when the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Law and order had ordered the police to ensure the registration of the case.