The Sindh High Court on Thursday extended the protective bail of Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Jam Abdul Karim by eight days till April 11 in the Nazim Jokhio murder case.

       At the last hearing on March 25, the court had granted 10-day bail to the lawmaker until April 3, in response to a plea he had filed from Dubai through his lawyer.

       The protective bail will help the MNA take part in the voting on a no-confidence motion tabled by the joint opposition in the National Assembly against Prime Minister Imran Khan.

       Today, the legislator returned to the country and approached the high court with a petition seeking to contest the charges against him in the case and requesting an extension on his bail.

       "The challan of the case has also not been submitted to the court so far," he stated in his plea.

       The court subsequently extended his protective bail against surety bonds of Rs100,000.

       His lawyer said it was not yet clear that in which court his client will have to surrender.

       He recalled that a judicial magistrate judge had called for the transfer of the case to the ATC. However, no challan had yet been submitted to the anti-terror court, he added.

       Case background

       Nazim Jokhio, 27, was found murdered at a Malir farmhouse of Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Jam Awais in November 2021.

       The MPA, his MNA brother Jam Abdul Karim and others have been booked for allegedly torturing Jokhio to death after he stopped their foreign guests from hunting houbara bustard.

       Police have named the detained MPA and four others as accused in a charge sheet and shown the MNA as an absconding suspect in the case.