An Islamabad district and sessions court on Friday sent PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry to Adiala jail on a 14-day judicial remand in a case over alleged incitement of violence against a constitutional institution.<\/p>\n
The court on Wednesday night had\u00a0granted\u00a0police an initial two-day physical remand of Fawad, hours after he was arrested.<\/p>\n
The former information minister was taken into custody after a first information report (FIR) against him was registered at Islamabad\u2019s Kohsar police station by an official of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for \u201cthreatening\u201d the electoral body\u2019s members and their families.<\/p>\n
The ECP\u2019s plea for an extension to Fawad\u2019s physical remand was heard in the courtroom of Judge Raja Waqas Ahmed today.<\/p>\n
At the onset of the hearing, the election commission\u2019s lawyer Saad Hassan, the prosecutor in the case, informed the court that the PTI leader\u2019s voice matching had been completed. He requested an extension in remand, saying that Fawad had to be taken to Lahore for a photogrammetric test.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor contended before the court that the former federal minister was inciting hatred against a constitutional institution. \u201cFawad is trying to create unrest,\u201d he said. \u201cThe statement threatens the lives of the election commission\u2019s workers.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ECP lawyer argued that an extension to the PTI leader\u2019s remand was imperative to carry out further investigation in the case. He cited the Shehbaz Gill case as an example.<\/p>\n
\u201cA day had already passed when the remand was approved at 12am,\u201d the investigation officer said. \u201cTechnically [speaking] we just got his remand for a day and we want an extension to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ECP lawyer told the court that Fawad\u2019s statement was available on record, adding that the PTI leader had also acknowledged his speech. \u201cNo one can object the speech. \u201cThe accused has accepted his statement.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the election commission\u2019s employees were told that they do \u201cthe work of a clerk\u201d. \u201cWe were threatened that they (PTI supporters) will reach our homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
At this, Fawad\u2019s counsel Babar Awan accused the election commission of colluding with the government against PTI. \u201cWe are being blamed and pressured.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ECP lawyer responded that Fawad was a senior politician but \u201cno one is above the law\u201d. He told the court that it was mandatory to search the PTI leader\u2019s home. \u201cIt is important to recover Fawad\u2019s laptop and mobile phone in his presence\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFawad\u2019s statement is not one person\u2019s statement but an entire group\u2019s narrative,\u201d the ECP lawyer said. \u201cA campaign has not only been launched against the ECP but also the top officials of the election commission.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Awan questioned why Fawad\u2019s face was covered by the police following his arrest. \u201cEven Kulbushan Yadav\u2019s face was not covered [after arrest] so why was Fawad\u2019s face covered with a white cloth,\u201d he said, adding that anti-terrorist force had been deployed around the PTI leader.<\/p>\n
Awan said that the election commission\u2019s secretary was a \u201cservant of his political masters\u201d, and wondered why the prosecution was irked by the use of the word \u201cclerk\u201d.<\/p>\n
Awan disagreed with the need for a further remand of his client, saying: \u201cThe video of Fawad\u2019s statement is available. What further investigation needs to be carried out?\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the conclusion of the arguments, the judge approved Fawad\u2019s request to have his handcuffs removed inside the court and also reserved its verdict on the issue of remand extension.<\/p>\n
Later, in its verdict, the court sent Fawad to judicial remand instead of physical remand.<\/p>\n
Separately, a bail application was filed by Fawad on the argument that the case against him was based on \u201cmala fide intention\u201d and \u201culterior motives\u201d, and filed \u201conly to harass, pressurize (sic) and blackmail\u201d him.<\/p>\n
It adds that the allegations leveled in the FIR were \u201cabsolutely false, frivolous and baseless\u201d. \u201cThe petitioner was arrested illegally, unlawfully and without any justification in negation to the law and constitutional rights of the petitioner.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Judge Ahmed refused to conduct the hearing of Fawad\u2019s bail plea. \u201cI do not have jurisdiction over the bail application,\u201d he said, suggesting that it be referred to the relevant forum.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, PTI leaders took the bail application to Judge Tahir Mehmood\u2019s courtroom, who then relayed it to Additional Sessions Judge Faizan Haider Gillani. The hearing was adjourned till tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the hearing, Heavy contingents of Frontier Corps personnel and police were deployed outside the court. Some PTI workers also clashed with policemen.<\/p>\n
Media personnel, former human rights minister Shireen Mazari and ex-SAPM Zulfi Bukhari among other PTI leaders were restrained by police from going inside the courtroom.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAre we terrorists that we are not allowed to go inside the court?\u201d Mazari remarked while talking to the media. \u201cAre you taking revenge from us?\u201d<\/p>\n
A first information report was registered against the PTI leader at the Kohsar police station in Islamabad on the complaint of Secretary of the Election Commission Umar Hameed.<\/p>\n
The complaint \u2014 a copy of which is available with\u00a0Dawn.com<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 invokes sections 153-A (promotion of enmity between groups), 506 (criminal intimidation), 505 (statement conducing to public mischief), and 124-A (sedition) of the Pakistan Penal Code at Islamabad\u2019s Kohsar Police Station.<\/p>\n It stated that Fawad, in a speech outside PTI Chairman Imran Khan\u2019s house, threatened the ECP and said that \u201cthose who become part of the caretaker government [in Punjab] will be pursued until they are punished\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Islamabad district and sessions court on Friday sent PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry to Adiala jail on a 14-day judicial remand in a case over alleged incitement of violence against a constitutional institution. The court on Wednesday night had\u00a0granted\u00a0police an initial two-day physical remand of Fawad, hours after he was arrested. The former information minister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=112636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112638,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112636\/revisions\/112638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/112637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=112636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=112636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=112636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}