PTI heavyweights among 51 proclaimed offenders facing property attachment

Fugitives from the law since May 9, PTI members including Umar Ayub, Ali Amin Gandapur, Zartaj Gul, Hammad Azhar, Farrukh Habib, and Murad Saeed have been proclaimed absconders, facing attachment of their properties.

By Nusrat Shaheen

ISLAMABAD: An antiterrorism court in Gujranwala Monday issued non-bailable arrest warrants for 51 members of former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, and ordered attachment of their properties, in a case concerning the infamous May 9 rioting, Geo News reported Monday.

Among the offenders are some of PTI’s frontline leaders including Umar Ayub, Ali Amin Gandapur, Zartaj Gul, Hammad Azhar, Farrukh Habib, and Murad Saeed, all of whom have been on the run since May 9. Others prominent names on the list include Zubair Niazi, Shaukat Bhatti, Mian Tariq, Rana Sajid Shaukat, Lala Asadullah, and PTI candidates from Gujranwala Ahmed Chatha, Bilal Ejaz and Zafarullah Cheema.

Section 88 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) empowers a court to order the attachment of any property, movable or immovable or both, belonging to the proclaimed absconder. The due process of proclaiming a person offender is governed by Section 87 of the Code.

Section 87 (1) of the Code provides that if any Court has reason to believe, after taking evidence, that any person against whom a warrant has been issued by it has absconded or is concealing himself so that such warrant cannot be executed, such Court may publish a written proclamation, requiring him to appear at a specified place and time before it not less than thirty days from the date of publication of such proclamation.

In the case of rioting at Rahwali Cantt, that process has been concluded as part of which advertisements were displayed at the houses of the accused and important places in the city on the order of the court, asking them to present themselves before the court. All of them continued in hiding.

Section 21-L of the Anti-Terrorism Act,1997 (XXVII of 1997) also provides for punishment with imprisonment from six months to five years or with fine or with both for abscondence.