KARACHI: A local court has granted bail to a citizen detained for transporting a lion in the city’s Karimabad neighborhood in the back of his Vigo risking the safety of citizens. A sessions court approved bail for Saqlain Javed against a surety of Rs 20, 000. Saqlain and his lion was taken into custody by Azizabad police station after the provincial home minister took notice of the video circulating on social media showing the wild animal in the back of his pickup without caring about the safety of public. Police had arrested Saqlain from the FB Area on Wednesday night and took his lion into custody. However, he claimed that he had a valid licence to keep the wild cat. He explained the lion was sick, therefore, he was taking it to a doctor in the Defense area. A First Information Report (FIR) was registered on behalf of the state against Saqlain at the Azizabad police station. Meanwhile, a division bench of the SHC expressed displeasure over the absence of applicants’ counsel in a case pertaining to the multi-billion corruption in awarding of gas fields. Chief Justice Ahmed Ali M Shaikh, who headed a division bench, had taken up the bail petitions filed by former petroleum minister Dr Asim Hussain, Iqbal Zaid, Ahmed Malik, Usman Basharat Mirza and others. Fuming at the applicants’ counsel during the hearing, the chief justice asked, “Should cases be closed all granting bail to bigwigs.” The hearing was put off till July 05. In the reference, Dr Asim Hussain has been accused of illegally awarding multi-billion gas processing contracts to Jamshoro Joint Venture Limited and thus embezzling Rs 17 billion. According to the National Accountability Bureau, the accused allowed the JJVL to process gas at different gas fields without conducting an open auction, signing agreements and memorandums of understanding as required by law, thus causing a loss of Rs 17.4 billion to the national exchequer. Other accused included SSGC managing director Khalid Rehman and former officials Zuhair Siddiqui, Azeem Iqbal, Shoaib Warsi, Yusuf Jamil Ansari and Malik Usman, OGDCL former managing director Basharat Mirza and official, Zahid Bakhtiar and JJVL chief executive officer, Iqbal Z Ahmed.