Karachi: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday refused to grant bail applications of several senior leaders of Mutttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and its breakaway faction who were arrested and sent to jail.

But a former minister and senior Pakistan Peoples Party leader managed to flee from the court.

MQM’s Waseem Akhtar, who is the potential candidate of the Karachi mayoral seat, and Rauf Siddiqui, a former home minister of Sindh province, reached the ATC along with their legal aides to defend their position in a case in which they were named as abettors and facilitators of terrorists.

They were co-accused along with Dr Asim Hussain, former petroleum minister of the PPP government, who face charges of treating the militants and terrorists in hospitals, he owned.

The ATC that had granted several extension in their bail applications remained unconvinced of the defence lawyers’ plea to further extend their bail.

Anees Kaimkhani, a hardened MQM worker and leader who rebelled from the party this year and founded Pak Sarzameen Party (PSP), was another co-accused in the case. The ATC judge also refused his bail and ordered the government to send them to jail.

All the three leaders were sent to the central prison of Karachi until August 3. However, the lawyers of the trio were expected to approach the Sindh High Court (SHC) to revert the ATC decision.

Contingents of police were deployed around the court after the judge’s denial of the bail applications.

Interesting, Qadir Patel, the former provincial minister of PPP, arrived late at the court where the hearing was going on. Upon hearing what was going on inside the court, Patel managed to escape before he was taken into custody.

Later on, talking to a television channel on phone, Patel claimed that the court’s doors were shut before he reached and that was why he went away He said that he was a political worker and could face hostile circumstances.

Patel had returned home recently from self-exile and the paramilitary Rangers grilled him for many hours to probe his role in the terrorists’ facilitators case.

Dr Hussain is also in detention in financial corruption cases besides his alleged facilitation to injured militants and terrorists at his hospitals.