Road to Perdition: SC releases Imran Khan; Pak Army “abducts” PTI leaders to quell riots
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Pakistan braced for more mayhem as the Supreme Court ordered the “immediate release” of former Prime Minister Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi on Thursday, terming his arrest “unlawful”, as his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders exhorted the people to hit the streets after prayers on Friday.
His arrest on Tuesday sparked unprecedented violence and arson across dozens of cities in Pakistan, leaving over a dozen dead and hundreds wounded.
Imran Khan claimed he was beaten with sticks, kept confined in a dirty room, and not allowed to go washroom.
To keep the peace, the Pakistan Army conducted a flag march outside the Supreme Court. The government has already deployed the armed forces across sensitive centers in Pakistan.
As chaos continued unabated across Pakistan on the third day on Thursday, PTI accused the army of “abducting” several party leaders to quell the ongoing riots.
The media reported a three-member Bench of the apex court—comprising Chief Justice of Pakistan Umar Ata Bandial, Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar, and Justice Athar Minallah—directed the anti-corruption watchdog National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to produce Khan, who was sent to the 8-day custody on Wednesday in the Al-Qadir Trust case, within an hour.
The media reported that the Pakistani Army arrested several PTI leaders, including former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a close aide of Imran Khan, for “inciting violent protests” and threatening peace.
The PTI claimed that 66-year-old Qureshi was transferred to an “undisclosed location.” Police said other PTI leaders Asad Umar, Fawad Chaudhry, Jamshed Iqbal Cheema, Falaknaz Chitrali, Musarrat Jamshed Cheema, and Maleeka Bokhari had also been arrested so far.
Hundreds of people were wounded across the terror-infested country after widespread riots broke out in the wake of the NAB officials barging into a room of the Islamabad High Court on Tuesday, and whisking Khan away in an armored vehicle.
On Thursday, the SC permitted only lawyers and journalists inside the courtroom when the NAB produced Khan.
Meanwhile, PTI leaders continued to encourage the people to take to the streets.
“I want to tell my brothers and sisters that you need to march to Islamabad after Friday prayers tomorrow,” PTI leader Murad Saeed tweeted.
After Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s appeal for calm, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Thursday asked Imran Khan’s party to “not make matters worse” and end its violent protest against his arrest. Bilawal asserted that he did not favor banning the PTI despite its workers attacking sensitive state installations, including security establishments.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman said the PTI’s reaction to Khan’s arrest in a corruption case was “completely unjustified.”
He accused the ex-PM of abusing his power when he was in office and that the allegations against him were “serious.” The arrest has been carried out lawfully, he added.
“But the PTI had already decided that their reaction would not be political and they would become a militant organization, that they would pick up stones and guns and attack the state,” he said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Software Houses Association (PASHA) President Muhammad Zohaib Khan urged the government to restore the Internet services, suspended after Khan’s arrest on Tuesday. Without Internet services and social media platforms, many in Pakistan already use various VPN services.
