Militants’ treatment case: Waseem Akhtar gets interim bail 

Karachi

An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday granted interim bail to Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader and nominated mayor of Karachi, Waseem Akhtar, in the case pertaining to the treatment of terrorists at hospitals owned by Dr Asim Hussain.

Waseem Akhtar, who was the chief minister’s adviser on home affairs at the time, is accused of asking former federal minister Dr Asim to provide medical treatment to militants who had been injured in clashes with law enforcers or party rivals at the Ziauddin hospitals.

Akhtar, through his counsel Khawaja Naveed, had approached the anti-terrorism court to obtain bail so he could avoid arrest upon which the judge had asked him to submit Rs1 million as surety. However, Akhtar refused to pay such a large amount and the judge replied that Akhtar should be ready to spend time in jail.

But all of a sudden Khawaja Naveed intervened and stated that his client also faced other cases and had to secure bail in them as well. He argued that Akhtar was also mayor-to-be and he had a lot of other work to do, including resolving sewage issues of the city.

The judge quipped that for that the mayoral candidate will have to clean the city, and then the court will mull decreasing the bail amount. At the end of the argument, the MQM leader was granted interim bail against a surety of Rs500,000.

Another MQM leader and former provincial minister Rauf Siddiqui is also on bail in the same case. Meanwhile, Investigation Officer DSP Altaf Hussain informed the court that absconder Anees Kaimkhani was untraceable since he had left the country on November 8, 2013, and there was no record of another leader of the party, Saleem Shahzad.