KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leaders Wasim Akhtar, Raoof Siddique, Pak Sarzameen Party’s Anees Qaim Khani and seven others were taken into custody in a terror facilitation case after an anti-terrorism court (ATC) rejected their interim bail.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader Qadir Patel managed to flee the court premises following the orders of his arrest.
A close aide of former president Asif Ali Zardari, Dr Asim Hussain is already under the custody of law enforcers in the case relating to provision of medical treatment and shelter to terrorists and criminals belonging to various banned outfits as well as the MQM and Lyari-based gangs at his private hospitals.
The FIR registered by the Rangers deputy superintendent alleges that Dr Asim provided medical treatment and shelter to terrorists and criminals on the behest of MQM leaders Abdul Rauf Siddiqui, Wasim Akhtar, Anis Qaimkhani and Saleem Shahzad and Pakistan Peoples Party leader Qadir Patel.
Last month, the ATC had rejected bail for Dr Asim in the terror facilitation case. Dr Asim, chairman of the Sindh Higher Education Commission, is facing charges of abetting and harbouring terrorists at his family-owned hospitals in Karachi.
The former federal minister is currently in the custody of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Karachi. He was first arrested by the paramilitary Rangers on charges of corruption and facilitating terrorists in August 2015.
