Reporting snapshot · 3 November 2026 (Asia/Karachi). The court has not published the written order, and neither account of the hearing says whether the couple have left custody, which their separate 10-year sentence still governs. The main limitation is that the case record the bail rests on is not public, so the allegations against them remain untested in anything reported today.
What the court decided on 3 November
An Islamabad anti-terrorism court granted bail to the human rights lawyers Imaan Mazari and her husband, Hadi Ali Chattha, on Tuesday, 3 November, in the case that accuses them of blocking a road and clashing with police. The Express Tribune reported that the presiding judge, Abual Hasnat Muhammad Zulqarnain, approved the bail applications against surety bonds of Rs5,000 each, with lawyer Riasat Ali Azad appearing for the couple. Geo News reported the same terms and rendered the judge’s name as Abul Hasanat Zulqarnain.
Police submitted the case record to the court before the decision was announced, The Express Tribune reported. That was the obstacle the case had been running into: the record itself. The court asked the parties whether they wished to make any further submissions before announcing its decision, and during the hearing the judge said, “I will look into the matter concerning the show-cause notice to the police,” a reference to notices issued to senior officers over their failure to produce the record earlier in the case.
The bail was granted in one case only. The Express Tribune noted that the decision came less than a week after an anti-terrorism court sentenced each of them to 10 years in prison in a separate case involving the removal of security barriers during the visit of an international cricket team in October 2024, which KhabarWire reported from Adiala jail on 29 October.
The case the bail covers
The case now before the court is registered at Islamabad’s Kohsar police station, The Express Tribune reported. According to the first information report, which The Express Tribune said was filed last year, it concerns a protest in the grounds of the Islamabad Press Club in which the couple led a Baloch Student Council protest attended by at least 150 demonstrators, who the report says raised anti-state slogans through loudspeakers and megaphones and obstructed police from carrying out their duties. The report was registered under Sections 186, 188, 341, 353 and 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code, after police told the protesters that a Section 144 order of the Code of Criminal Procedure was in force.
Geo News described the same case as one of interfering in official duties and said the couple were indicted on 7 October. The two accounts do not agree on when the case was registered: Geo News placed the registration on 25 October 2024, while The Express Tribune described the first information report as filed last year, which would place it in 2025. The court has not published the order, so the date cannot be settled from the record available.
The pair have been in custody since their arrest on 23 January 2026 in a case registered over a protest outside the Islamabad High Court, Geo News reported. That arrest came two days after the high court granted them protective bail in a case registered under terrorism and attempted murder charges, which KhabarWire reported. A sessions court sentenced them the next day to 17 years on multiple charges under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act for social media posts. On 17 September the Supreme Court suspended those sentences and granted bail against surety bonds of Rs200,000 each pending the Islamabad High Court’s decision on the case, and Islamabad police arrested them again hours later, Geo News reported.
Why the hearing was delayed
On 17 October the court fixed the hearing for 3 November after the police had failed to produce the case record. The Express Tribune reported that the court summoned the Islamabad inspector general of police to the 3 November hearing and issued show-cause notices to the superintendent of police and a deputy superintendent of police over the investigating officer’s repeated absence and failure to produce the record. The judge warned that the officers could face proceedings leading to imprisonment if the record was not presented, and Advocate Zafar Khokhar asked the court which rules allow an investigating officer to take the case record on vacation with him.
Counsel used that hearing to press for a decision. The report records their argument that bail petitions should be decided within four to five days under judicial policy, and that the delay created the impression that the accused would be convicted first in the trial of the other case and have the bail application decided afterwards. They also told the court that the charges were bailable, that the court had already ordered that physical remand was not required, and that a Section 7(h) charge under the Anti-Terrorism Act had been added to the case. Advocate Aleem Abbasi urged the court to exercise its powers and decide the matter on merit, warning that the legal fraternity had been unable to secure justice for its own.
What the bail changes, and what it does not
The decision answers the question the petition was filed to resolve: whether the couple could be kept in custody on the road blockade charge while the anti-terrorism trial over the security barriers continues. It does not touch the 10-year sentence handed down on 29 October, and nothing in the accounts of today’s hearing says the couple have left Adiala jail.
That conviction is the one now running their sentences. The trial in the barrier removal case reached the cross-examination stage, with statements from all seven prosecution witnesses recorded, and the case was shifted to Adiala jail amid disputes over the couple’s production in court and defence access to them, The Express Tribune reported on 26 October. On the same day the couple asked the Supreme Court to stay that trial, arguing that unless it was halted their pending high court application would become ineffective, that the trial court had proceeded in haste without giving them adequate time and had recorded the witnesses’ statements in a single day, and that removing barriers did not amount to terrorism. The Islamabad High Court heard their separate appeal against the framing of the charges on 19 October and said it would decide after hearing the respondents.
Their route out of prison therefore still runs through the Supreme Court and the high court, and KhabarWire tracks those proceedings in its Parliament and Courts hub.
What is still uncertain
No account of today’s hearing says whether the couple have been released, moved to another cell block or produced in court again, and the written order has not been published. The reporting also does not explain how the court reconciled the Section 7(h) Anti-Terrorism Act charge that counsel said had been added to this case with its decision to grant bail, nor how the judge intends to deal with the show-cause notices to the police.
Whether the police produced the complete record, or a partial file, is also unclear from the accounts. The bar’s earlier argument, that the delay made it look as though the couple would be convicted first in the other case and have bail decided afterwards, has been answered for this case only. No public statement from either lawyer or their counsel was reported today.
