A day after his arrest in a fresh crackdown launched against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for \u2018violating\u2019 regulations devised under a new law \u2014 Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, the police on Tuesday released party chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan from their custody. In a statement, the police said the PTI chief had been discharged from a case registered in Sangjani police station. Speaking to journalists after being released from police custody, Barrister Gohar strongly condemned the police actions within the Parliament House premises, saying men with covered faces stormed the parliament and arrested at least 10 of party\u2019s lawmakers. \u201cThis time, a CCTV footage [of the arrests] will be made public,\u201d the PTI chief said, calling September 9 “a black day for Pakistan”. Furthermore, he said they believe the arrests were an attack on parliament, urging the National Assembly (NA) speaker to investigate the matter. “Our leaders forgave all the hardships they faced for the sake of the country, people, and democracy,” he said, adding: \u201cWe stayed in parliament so we could play our role.\u201d He also questioned whether it was a crime to prolong a rally beyond its designated timeframe. The police, a day earlier, arrested a number of party leaders in several cases, including the reported attack on police at Chongi No 26 \u2014 which turned into a battleground as PTI workers and law enforcement agencies (LEAs) clashed after the formers deviated routes leading to Sangjani, venue of public gathering. Other party leaders who have been arrested include PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, Sher Afzal Marwat, Zain Qureshi, Sheikh Waqas Akram, Naseem-ur-Rehman, and Zubair Khan. The police have filed cases against several leaders of the Imran-founded party under the newly-enacted law, at the Noon Village and Sangjani police stations. The first information report (FIR) stated that charged PTI workers attacked police teams with batons and pelted them with stones when officers tried to stop them from violating the Islamabad rally’s route. Meanwhile, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) sent senior PTI leader Shoaib Shaheen on a judicial remand in a case pertaining to a violation of newly-enacted law on regulating public gatherings in the federal capital \u2014 registered at Noon Village police station. During the hearing \u2014 conducted by ATC Judge Abual Hasnat Muhammad Zulqarnain, Prosecutor Raja Naveed demanded 15-day physical remand of Shaheen and claimed that they have to recover \u201cpolice kits\u201d available with the accused. \u201cThey [PTI workers] attacked the police by using the law enforcers\u2019 equipment,\u201d the prosecutor said. Judge Zulqarnain sought the timeframe of a public gathering given to the Imran Khan-founded party. To which, Naveed replied they were allowed to demonstrate between 4pm to 7pm. The prosecutor also pointed out that a new law regarding \u201cpublic order\u201d has been enacted \u2014 which according to the lawyer was violated by the party. He also accused PTI leadership of provoking workers and supporters. For his part, Defence Attorney Riyasat Ali denied the claims and said his client wasn\u2019t present at the occasion. He also played the CCTV footage of Shoaib\u2019s arrest in the courtroom, showcasing how the lawyer was arrested. He argued that Shaheen was arrested from his chamber, which has protection as per law. Replying to Judge Zulqarnain\u2019s question regarding the role of the PTI leader in the clashes, the defence lawyer said that the latter has been accused of \u201cprovoking and directing\u201d the party workers. After hearing the arguments, the ATC judge reserved the verdict on physical remand and adjourned the hearing. On the other hand, ATC Judge Zulqarnain sent other PTI leaders, including Sher Afzal Marwat, Zain Qureshi, Amir Dogar, Naseem Shah, Ahmed Chattha, Sheikh Waqas Akram and Shaheen, to jail on eight-day physical remand in a case registered at Sangjani police station related to attack on police personnel near Chongi No 26 area during the party’s September 8 Islamabad power show. \u2018Wait till ATC\u2019s ruling\u2019 Earlier, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) also heard a habeas corpus petition, challenging the arrests of the PTI leader. Islamabad Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Syed Ali Nasir Rizvi appeared before the court on a summon notice issued by IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq. The chief justice asked whereabouts of the PTI leader, to which, the IGP said he was at the anti-terrorism court. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t the police allow the lawyers to meet Shaheen.\u201d Advocate Umair Baloch, petitioner and brother of Shoaib Shaheen, also complained about misconduct by the police authorities. Judge Farooq said the Noon Village police arrested the lawyer, adding that all those who were \u201cpicked up\u201d were formally arrested. The judge sought documents related to the PTI leader\u2019s arrest, with the Defence Lawyer saying who heard Shaheen provoking the workers. Following the arguments, Aamer Farooq said that the case is currently underway in ATC. \u201cLet\u2019s see, what the police get \u2013 physical or judicial remand.\u201d \u201cWe will wait till the ATC gives a ruling on the police request,\u201d the IHC said, adjourning the hearing till tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A day after his arrest in a fresh crackdown launched against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for \u2018violating\u2019 regulations devised under a new law \u2014 Peaceful…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19543,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}