DC office attack: ATC grants bail to Ali Zaidi in terrorism case

• Zaidi booked in vandalism case. 
• PTI leader gets bail till Jan 28.
• Several others also nominated.

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Friday granted pre-arrest bail to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Sindh President Ali Ziadi in a terror case for vandalising the deputy commissioner (DC) office in the city's Keamari area.

The police booked the former federal minister and 16 others for alleged vandalism and rioting at the deputy commissioner's office.

The court granted the bail against Rs30,000 bail surety bonds and stopped the police from arresting the suspect till January 28. PTI's Bilal Ghaffar, Saeed Afridi, and others have already secured bail in the same case.

The PTI leader and others were nominated in the terror case after a protest against alleged rigging in Karachi’s local government (LG) polls, outside the DC office, turned violent resulting in clashes between the workers of political parties and police personnel.

PTI leaders' lawyers Advocate Zahoor Mehsood and Farhan Sardar told the court that the party workers visited the DC office to record a peaceful protest against the delay in notifying the results of some of the union committees after the LG polls.

The counsel claimed that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) activists — who were also there — "damaged the office during their raid", however, their workers were named in the FIRs.

"The case never attracted anti-terror law sections, while the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) sections were available," they argued. The lawyers pleaded to the court to grant the suspect pre-arrest bail as they were willing to cooperate with the police in the probe.

JI delegation to meet with PTI

Earlier, PTI asserted that the party was in contact with the Jamat-e-Islami (JI) for the formation of an alliance in the city council.

Talking to the press after the hearing today, PTI Sindh President Zaidi said that "a delegation of JI is meeting with PTI leaders tomorrow after which the two sides will finalise their future strategy”.

Ruling out the possibility of an alliance with the PPP terming the party the “Zardari mafia”.

The PPP emerged as the biggest party, followed by JI and PTI, as per the results of the local government polls in Karachi, held on January 15.

The PPP has also shown its readiness to form an alliance with the JI, and a delegation led by Sindh Minister Saeed Ghani met JI Karachi Emir Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman on Thursday.

However, the JI is yet to decide which party it will form an alliance with.