Despite getting permission from Anti-Terrorism Court to go abroad, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Karachi chapter president Dr Asim Hussain will have to wait at least till first week of May as the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Tuesday discharged his petition seeking removal of his name from Exit Control List (ECL). A division bench, headed by Justice Muhammad Junaid Ghaffar, had to hear the plea but it could not do so due to the shortage of time. The petition will be heard in the first week of next month.
Earlier, the PPP leader and close aide of former president Asif Zardari, approached the SHC, requesting it to remove his name from ECL in order to allow him travel abroad for medical treatment. Dr Asim, who has been facing charges of corruption of Rs 479.84 billion and harbouring and treating terrorists at his hospital, was granted bail by the SHC last month.
The court had also included his name in ECL and directed the ministry of interior not to issue him fresh or duplicate passport. He petitioned the high court submitting that a medical board had recommended that he needed spinal surgery abroad. It was worth mentioning here that earlier on April 15, the ATC allowed Dr Asim to travel abroad against a surety of Rs 2 million. It ruled that if Dr Asim does not return, the state machinery should take over his hospital.
He faces charges of treating suspected terrorists, political militants and gangsters at his hospital on the behest of Muttahida Qaumi Movement's (MQM) leader and now Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar, lawmaker Rauf Siddiqui, Saleem Shehzad, Pak Sarzameen Party president Anis Kaimkhani, PPP's Abdul Qadir Patel, and Pasban Pakistan's Usman Moazzam.
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