Haleem Adil obtains bail in land grabbing case

The leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly, Haleem Adil Sheikh of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, obtained on Wednesday interim pre-arrest bail from a court in a case pertaining to land grabbing.

The PTI leader was booked by the Anti-Encroachment Force Zone I for allegedly illegally occupying 40 acres of state land near the Northern Bypass in the Manghopir area.

Sheikh filed an application with District and Sessions Judge (East) Abdul Hafeez Maitlo, who is also the presiding officer of the Special Court Sindh Public Property (Removal of Encroachment), seeking bail before arrest.

The legislator, along with PTI lawyers, including Riaz Effendi, Nasrullah Jamali and Abdul Rehman Mahesar, turned up in the court and claimed that a fabricated case had been registered against him at the instigation of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party.

He said he was willing to join the investigation into the case but apprehended his arrest at the hands of the police. He, therefore, requested the court to grant him bail.

After the initial hearing, the judge approved pre-arrest bail of Sheikh subject to submission of a surety bond of Rs100,000. The court directed him to join the investigation. It adjourned the matter until July 18 for confirmation of the bail or otherwise. The IO was told to appear before the court on the next hearing along with the case record.

Nimra Kazmi case

A sessions court on Wednesday approved post-arrest bail of the purported husband of Nimra Kazmi, a girl who went missing from Karachi in April and later found to have married a man in Punjab, in a case related to her alleged abduction and underage marriage.

The girl went missing from her home in Saudabad in April and was later traced to Dera Gazi Khan where she claimed to have solemnised free-will marriage with a person, Shahrukh Najeeb.

An FIR was lodged against Najeeb at the Saudabad police station under the Section 364-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). Later, sections 3/4 of the Sindh Child Marriages Restraint Act 2013 were incorporated in the case.

The man was taken into custody by the Punjab police on May 25 and handed over to the Sindh police so he could be produced before the relevant court in Karachi. Advocate Sarim Hussain Alvi, a counsel for the suspect, stated that Nimra had already recorded her statement under the Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) wherein she denied that she was kidnapped by anyone and affirmed that she had married Najeeb of her own free will. The lawyer argued that due to these facts, no offence of abduction could be made out.