KARACHI: An antiterrorism court on Thursday dismissed bail applications of 26 accused in a case pertaining to alleged recovery of illicit arms and explosives from Nine Zero, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement`s headquarters in Azizabad.

The accused, including Faisal Mehmood, alias Faisal Mota, who has been sentenced to death in absentia in journalist Wali Khan Babar`s murder case, have been charged with stocking a huge quantity of illicit arms, ammunition and explosive substances at the party`s headquarters.

On Thursday, the ATC-XVII judge, who is conducting trial in the judicial complex inside the central prison, pronounced the verdict on their bail applications reserved after recording evidence and final arguments from both sides.

The judge noted that the applicants could not be admitted to post-arrest bail at this stage of trial and that the prosecution claimed to have sufficient evidence to connect their role with thecommission of the alleged crime.

Therefore, the judge dismissed bail pleas of all the accused persons, who have been detained in the Karachi centraljailin the presentcase.

According to the prosecution, Rangers personnel had arrested MQM senior leader Amir Khan and 26 other armed suspects, including Faisal Mehmood alias Mota, Obaid, alias K2, and Qadir Hingoro during a pre-dawn raid on March 11, 2015.

The defence counsel for the detained accuse d argued on the bail applications that there were no private witnesses in the present case, while the hand grenades and most of the weapons shown to have allegedly been seized from the accused carried no serial numbers.

Defence counsel Mohammad Jiwani, Mushtaq Ahmed and others further argued that the prosecution claimed that the arms and explosives were sealed, but Rangers` Colonel Tahir had shown unsealed weapons to the media during a press conference in the Khursheed Memorial Hall and later at the Rangers` headquarters.

Theyfurther argued that the prosecution claimed to have allegedly recovered a hand grenade and an assault rifle from each accused, but no case was lodged under the Explosives Act and all the FIRs were registered under Section 12-1(A) of the Sindh Arms Act, 2013, and none of the FIRs bore signatures of the complainants.

They also argued that 14 accused,including Faisal Mota and Obaid K2, were arrested unarmed in the Khursheed Memorial Hall as was visible in the CCTV footages while 10 others were arrested in the nearby hostel set up by the MQM for its MPAs.

The defence counsel contended that the prosecution had failed to produce any piece of strong evidence to prove the charges, thus the applicants be granted bail since they had been behind bars for the last three years or so.

On the other hand, the Rangers` prosecutor argued that the accused, who were involved in several heinous crimes, had taken shelter at the MQM`s headquarters, as Faisal Mota was a death convict.

He further argued that a large number of weapons, ammunitions and explosive substances were also seized from their possession after their arrest, adding that the prosecution had enough evidence to prove the charges against all the detained accused persons. Therefore, the prosecutor pleaded to the court to reject the bail applications since they lacked merit at the present stage of the trial.

Senior deputy convener of the MQM-P Amir Khan, former in-charge of security of the Nine Zero Minhaj Qazi and Raees, alias Mama, with their absconding accomplices have been separately charged with providing shelter to wanted criminals at the party`s headquarters in Azizabad and using them for terrorist activities.