Cases registered in Karachi, Murree: Rashid moves IHC

ISLAMABAD: Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rashid, Saturday, approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) to bar the police from shifting him to Karachi from the federal capital and to nullify the cases registered against him in the port city and Murree.

A single bench of Justice Tariq Mehmood Jehangiri will take up the petition and application against the IHC Registrar Office’s objections on Monday.

Rashid in his petition has cited 11 respondents, including the inspector generals of Islamabad, Sindh, and Punjab, as well as the interior secretary.

“The respondents be restrained from shifting the petitioner from Islamabad to Karachi till the final disposal of the instant constitutional petition,” said the plea. The AML chief requested the court to quash the case registered at Aabpara Police Station in Islamabad after declaring it as “illegal, unlawful and without lawful authority”, and restrict the respondents from lodging more cases against him.

Moreover, the FIRs registered at Murree and Karachi should “be declared as illegal, unlawful, result of abuse of powers and misuse of authority or in the alternate”. The petition also requested the court that the case registered in Karachi “be ordered to be shifted to Islamabad in accordance with section 234, 235 and 239 of CrPC where the case was already registered”.

The petition stated that PTI chief Imran Khan had accused former president and PPP co-chair Asif Ali Zardari of conspiring to murder, which Rashid only referred to. It added that the plaintiff in the cases against him was not the victim.

A case was registered against Rashid in Karachi for delivering “immoral” remarks against Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. The case was registered at the Mochko police station by a PPP worker over the former minister’s comments against the PPP chairman.

The police team had been formed to take custody of the AML leader and would transfer him to Karachi.

The former interior minister was earlier arrested by the Islamabad police in a late-night raid on his residence in a private housing society for publically accusing former president Asif Ali Zardari of hatching a plot to assassinate PTI Chairman Imran Khan.

Rashid was arrested by the Aabpara police after a case was registered against him under sections 120B, 153 A, and 505 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of PPP Rawalpindi Division Vice President Raja Inayat. On Thursday, a local court remanded him to two-day police custody following his late-night arrest.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023