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An Islamabad district and sessions court rejected on Tuesday Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rashid’s post-arrest bail petition in a case pertaining to his remarks against former president Asif Ali Zardari.
The Islamabad police had arrested the PTI ally on Feb 2 for allegedly making defamatory remarks against the PPP leadership after which the court had granted the police his two-day physical remand.
Upon completion of his physical remand, an Islamabad court had on Feb 4 sent Rashid on a 14-day judicial remand in the case filed at the city’s Aabpara Police Station, rejecting the police request for another physical remand.
The same day Rashid had filed a post-arrest bail petition in the court. He had also approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) urging it to bar authorities from filing new cases against him on the basis of his political statements.
On Tuesday, the IHC had ordered the police to not take further action against the AML chief in cases filed against him in Karachi and Balochistan.
Earlier today, the court of Judicial Magistrate Umar Shabbir had taken up Rashid’s petition and reserved its verdict on the plea.
The hearing
At the outset of the hearing, Rashid’s lawyers submitted the detailed order released by the IHC yesterday in court along with the power of attorney.
At that, the judge asked Razzak if his stance was that the AML leader was not a part of the conspiracy to murder PTI chairman Imran Khan.
“Sheikh Rashid referred to Imran’s statement and said that what he [the PTI chief] said was correct,” the lawyer responded and subsequently started presenting his arguments.
Razzak said that the case against his client was lodged two days before he had passed remarks against Zardari. “Even if a murder is reported, the FIR is not prepared this quickly.
“There is a conspiracy being hatched against Imran but no FIR has been registered against that […] but a case was immediately lodged when it comes to defamation of Zardari,” he contended.
Razzak then read out the contents of the FIR registered against Rashid. He said that the police issued a notice to the AML chief on Jan 30.
“Sheikh Rashid didn’t receive them, instead they were being run on television. The next day, the notices were cancelled and an FIR was lodged,” he stated, adding that the police should have first recorded Rashid’s statement, investigated his remarks and then taken action.
The lawyer argued that not a single state officer had filed a complaint against his client. The allegations against Rashid, he went on, were leveled by a common citizen who is a PPP supporter.
“It would have been different if Zardari had registered a case. Zardari sent a defamation notice to Imran Khan for his remarks but when it comes to Sheikh Rashid, who had just said that Imran spoke the truth, a case was directly registered.”
Referring to the IHC verdict issued on Monday, Razzak said that no further investigation was required in the case and pleaded that his client should be immediately granted bail.
“The police found nothing from him during the investigation […] the case against him was only registered on the pretext of political revenge,” he contended, adding that the police had raided the AML chief’s house and took him away in “two bulletproof cars”.