Corruption inquiries: Akram Durrani granted pre-arrest bail till Nov 4.

ISLAMABAD -- The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday granted pre-arrest bail to former federal minister and opposition Rehbar Committee's Convener Akram Khan Durrani till November 4 in three corruption cases against him initiated by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

A division bench of the IHC comprising Chief Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb heard the petition on Wednesday and granted the JUI-F leader bail against surety bonds of Rs500,000 each in corruption inquires against him.

Kamran Murtaza Advocate appeared before the bench as lawyer of Akram Durrani. After hearing the arguments of Kamran Murtaza, the court granted pre-arrest bail to Akram Durrani till 4th November and summoned the reply from NAB on the petition.

On Tuesday, Durrani had filed a petition before the court to avoid his arrest in multiple inquiries initiated against him. In a petition, Durrani had stated that he was 'being victimised and harassed by the respondents although he is cooperating with them and will continue to do so. However, the pace at which all three inquiries are being carried out, his arrest before he could further garner support from other opposition parties for Azadi March is very likely.'

The petitioner had further contended that he belonged to the JUI-F that has planned to lead the Azadi March against the government from Oct 27 and a Rehbar Committee was formed for coordination and preparation of the protest.

'The petitioner has been playing an instrumental role in the Rehbar Committee and has in fact been representing his party at some of these meetings of the committee,' the petition had stated, adding that the government just to disturb political activities was behind the inquiries.

The petitioner had stated that the NAB 'since its formation in 1999 has primarily been serving as a tool of political engineering and a way of silencing dissenting voices'.

The petition further had maintained said that the...