Court denies remand of Musharraf in Lal Masjid prayer leader murder case

ISLAMABAD: A magistrate on Friday refused to grant five-day remand of former dictator Pervez Musharraf in the Ghazi Abdul Rasheed murder case because he failed to appear before the court in person, Express News reported. 
The magistrate told the police that remand can only be given in the presence of the suspect and ordered them to present Musharraf before the court. 
Musharraf, who had only just managed to secure his release on October 10 following bail being granted in the Akbar Bugti murder case, had found himself under arrest again for the charge of murdering the ‘prayer leader’ of Lal Masjid, Abdul Rasheed during the infamous 2007 operation after a few hours. 
“We have put General Musharraf under house arrest in a case involving a military operation on an Islamabad mosque,” Muhammad, Rizwan, a senior official of the Islamabad police had told reporters. 
Ghazi murder 
Police had earlier refused a request by leaders of Lal Masjid to name Retired General Musharraf as a suspect in the case of a military raid in 2007 which saw dozens killed including one of the administrators. 
On orders from the Islamabad High Court, though, a case was finally registered against Musharraf on September 2, for the murder of Abdul Rashid and his mother during the Lal Masjid operation, paving way for recent arrest. 
The case was filed after Haroon Rasheed, the son of Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, submitted an application at the Aabpara police station for the registration of an FIR against the former president for involvement in the death of Haroon’s father and grandmother. 
In the application, Rasheed had referred to about 20 pages of the Lal Masjid Commission report, which hold the former president responsible for the operation. 
On October 9, Musharraf was granted bail by a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court in the Bugti murder case on account of insufficient evidence against the accused. The indicted former president had already received bail in the Benazir Bhutto assassination case and the judges’ detention case.