RAWALPINDI: A local court, on Thursday, dismissed the police request to grant physical remand of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi in cases related to May 9 violence and sent him to jail on 14-day judicial remand.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Syed Jahangir Ali, while announcing its reserved judgment, rejected the police plea to hand over Qureshi on a six-day physical remand to them and sent him on judicial remand.
Earlier, police shifted Qureshi to a judicial complex amid a tight security arrangement for him before the court to obtain his physical remand.
Qureshi was arrested by police from outside Adiala Jail after he was released from the prison on bail in the cypher case.
Police produced Qureshi before Additional District and Sessions Judge Syed Jahangir Ali. At the start of the hearing, Qureshi raised his handcuffed hands and showed them to the judge. Qureshi also said he wanted to record his statement before the court.
The PTI vice chairman told the judge that he was ready to take oath on the Holy Quran that he was not present in Rawalpindi on May 9 and instead, he was in Karachi that day. “Summon record from Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), I was present in Karachi,” he said, adding that his wife was admitted in a hospital in Karachi due to which he was there.
He said the three-member bench of the Supreme Court had granted him bail and despite that, he was arrested under Maintenance of Public Order (MPO).
Qureshi requested the court to get his handcuffs unlocked, upon which the judge directed the police to remove the handcuffs.
Qureshi further said he remained a member of parliament five times. “The Station House Officer (SHO) pushed and kicked him as well as tortured him. He was not taken to hospital despite chest pain. They [the police] tried to record my statement but I decided to record my statement in the presence of my lawyer,” he said.
The PTI leader said he was tortured mentally and physically as well as kept in harshest cold weather as well as not allowed to sleep. He said that police arrested him from the premises of the jail.
During the hearing, Prosecutor Akram Amin requested the court to grant physical remand of the accused to investigate him regarding 12 cases including the attack on the GHQ, army museum, and office of an intelligence agency.
“We have received reports from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Pemra, and intelligence agencies and in all these reports there is concrete evidence against Qureshi,” he said, adding that all the evidence had been produced before the court.
He said the accused issued a protest call on social media during the protest demonstrations that started after the arrest of the PTI founder Imran Khan. He said he wanted to read out the evidence in front of the court. “We have to look into the speech of the accused as it was not an ordinary speech,” he said, adding that police arrested Qureshi based on available evidence.
The prosecutor further said that “this is not our case as to whether Qureshi was present among the protesters who attacked GHQ but our case is that after the speech of Qureshi, GHQ was attacked.”
Objecting to the prosecution’s request, Qureshi’s lawyer Ali Bukhari requested the court to discharge his client from the case. He told the court that the prosecution presented a single tweet before the court as evidence against his client. Bukhari reading out the tweet of Qureshi said that his client urged people to take to the street in solidarity with the PTI founder.
“My client has been kept in illegal confinement for 24 hours,” he said, adding that his client be discharged from the case as the court would have to give reasons for granting his physical remand. He further said “there is nothing to be recovered from my client. What his client just stated, the court is bound to write this statement, the purpose of physical remand is just to mentally torture him.”
The defence counsel said that his client had not been nominated in the case and supplementary case the suspect has to be discharged from the case. “The Challan [charge sheet] presented by the police did not have the name of Qureshi then his physical remand be granted,” he said.
Bukhari said his client reached Islamabad on May 11, and he was taken into custody from GB House under MPO. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) dismissed that MPO order and later he was arrested in the cypher case and the apex court granted him bail in the cypher case.
The court after hearing the arguments reserved its judgment.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
Comments
Comments are closed.