SC orders release of man who attacked Musharraf

Islamabad: pakistan’ s Supreme Court( SC) on Monday ordered the release of a man on completion of his jail term in connection with the 2003 assassination atempt on the country’s former president Pervez Musharraf, a defence lawyer said.

Rana Tanveer had been sentenced to 14 years in 2005 by a military court that convicted him of playing a role in the atack on Musharraf in 2003. Musharraf narrowly escaped two backto-back bomb and gun atacks on his convoy in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Tanveer’s lawyer, Hashmat Habib, said his client has not been released despite completing his jail term.

He said he hoped that Tanveer will be freed under Monday’s order from the Supreme Court.

In a separate development, the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday quashed the sentences of the accused in the famous Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) director Perween Rahman murder case.

The SHC allowed the appeals of accused Rahim Swati, Amjad Hussain, Ayaz Swati and Ahmed Hussain against their sentences in the murder case and declared the sentences null and void.

The high court said that if the accused are not wanted in other cases, they should be released.

Rahman, who was a renowned urban planner and social activist, was murdered in a drive-by shooting on her car at the Banaras flyover in Karachi a few minutes ater she let her office for home on March 13, 2013.

The accused named in her murder case were sentenced to double life terms by an anti-terrorism court in December, 2021. The fith accused, Imran Swati, was awarded a sentence of seven years for being an accomplice in the murder of Rehman.

Earlier this month, the SHC dismissed an application filed by a complainant in Rahman’s murder case for the inclusion of additional evidence, observing that the evidence was already in the knowledge of the prosecution.

Auqila Ismail had filed application with the SHC on appeals filed by convicts against their convictions, submiting that she came to know that main appellant Mohammad Rahim Swati had also admited to the murder in a private television channel interview.

She said the contents of the private channel’s interview materially corroborate the confession of appellant Swati and proved that the motive behind the murder was a dispute between the appellant and Rahman over a piece of land of the OPP.

The court was requested to take the additional evidence, in relation to the video recording of the interview of the appellant, by itself or direct that it be taken up by the trial court.