ISLAMABAD: A local court, on Wednesday, remanded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s leader and party chairman Imran Khan’s chief of staff, Shahbaz Gill, into police custody for two days, a day after he was arrested by the police on charges of “sedition” and “inciting the public against the state institutions”.
The Kohsar police produced Shahbaz Gill before the duty magistrate, Umer Bashir, for obtaining his physical remand for 14 days amid tight security arrangements.
After hearing arguments of the state and defence counsel, the court reserved its judgement for some time.
Later, the court announced that a two-day physical remand of the accused had been granted. The court directed police to produce him again on August 12.
The court also directed Investigation Officer (IO) Tallat Mehmood to conduct a medical examination of the accused.
The police did not allow the media personnel to enter the courtroom.
The PTI leader was arrested on Tuesday at Banigala Chowk. The arrest came after the Pakistan Electronic and Media Regulatory Authority had issued a show-cause notice to a private TV channel for airing controversial remarks made by Shahbaz Gill, which the authority described as “highly hateful and seditious” and “tantamount to inciting the armed forces towards revolt”.
Following the arrest, a case was registered on Magistrate Ghulam Murtaza Chandio’s complaint filed under sections 34 (common intention), 109 (abetment), 120 (concealing design to commit offence punishable with imprisonment), 121 (waging war against state), 124-A (sedition), 131 (abetting mutiny, or attempt to seduce a soldier, sailor or airman from his duty), 153 (provoking to cause riot), 505 (statement conducing to public mischief), and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
According to the court order, the IO requested a physical remand of 14 days of the accused and it was submitted in the application that physical custody was required for carrying out further investigations in respect of other persons allegedly involved in the commission of the offence, for the recovery of the mobile phone allegedly used for the commission of the offence, for voice matching of the accused through forensics, and also to verify the interview given by the accused from the head office of the media house which is situated in Karachi.
The order further said that Jahangir Jadoon, the advocate general, and Naveed Akhtar, assistant district public prosecutor for the state, had argued that physical remand was necessary for investigations, recovery of phone, and forensic examination of the video.
They further contended that the body of the accused was required necessarily for the purpose of the forensics in respect of his voice matching and for verification of video from the media house concerned and also to investigate the matter in respect of the involvement of any other co-accused persons, if any.
Defence counsel Faisal Chaudhry and Syed Muhammad Ali Bukhari argued that no ground for a grant of physical remand existed, as the accused was already in the custody of police for the last 24 hours.
They also submitted that the video in question had already been taken into custody and that sufficient time had passed since the accused had been arrested. The accused had been tortured, they claimed, and requested that a medical examination of the accused be carried out.
“I have heard the accused, the IO, the counsel appearing on the behalf of the state as well as the counsel for the accused, (and) gone through the record,” the order said, adding that there were grounds for believing that the accusation against the accused was well-founded.
“The investigation is yet to be completed, the recovery of the alleged mobile phone is to be effected and the body of the accused is also necessary for voice matching through forensic examination with the voice already recorded in the recovered USB which is available in the police file. Hence, physical remand of two days is granted,” it said.
Talking to journalists outside the courtroom, Shahbaz Gill claimed that there was nothing in his remarks that could cause embarrassment, adding that his was a “statement of a patriot”.
He also said that he did not try to instigate anyone. “My statement was only directed towards officers within the bureaucracy in the strategic media cell that was involved in wrongdoing,” he said.
The PTI leader’s lawyer Faisal Chaudhry told journalists that there were stains of blood on the politician’s clothes. “No one is ready to receive our application regarding Gill’s abduction at the Banigala police station,” he added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022