KARACHI: A sessions court on Friday dismissed the bail application of an elected official of the Lyari Town in a case pertaining to the August 10 firing on the office of MNA Q adir Patel in Clifton.
After hearing arguments from the defence counsel and prosecutor Rana Khaliq, Additional District and Sessions Judge (South) Muhammad Aslam Shaikh dismissed the application of Malik Fayyaz, the vice UC chairman, observing that there were reasonable grounds to connect him with the commission of the offence.
The court observed that the suspect had been apprehended on a tip-off along with the vehicle allegedly used in the commission of the offence.
It added that the CCTV footage and vehicle tracker report corroborated the geo-fencing data and call data record of the suspect’s phone.
The court noted that the suspect had allegedly admitted to the police that he had purchased the weapon from a gun shop and thrown it away after using it in the crime.
However, to verify the claim, the investigating officer approached the shop and obtained the record of the test-firing empties seized at the time of purchase of the weapon for forensic examination.
It added that, according to the record, the weapon had been purchased by the suspect and the empties recovered from the crime scene matched the test-firing empties of the weapon.
During the hearing, the defence counsel contended that the applicant had been made a victim of political victimisation and maliciously implicated in the case owing to an existing property dispute and political differences with MNA Patel.
The defence also argued that no one had been injured in the alleged incident and that no weapon had been recovered from the possession or on the pointation of the applicant.
According to police, on Aug 10, MNA Patel was sitting in his office in Block-5, Clifton, when a white Toyota Fortuner arrived and its occupant fired seven/eight shots towards the office at about 02:30am.
It added three bullets struck the main gate but did not penetrate across it. Two bullet fragments were also recovered from the gate.