QUETTA: Quetta Police on Wednesday formally named former prime minister Imran Khan in connection with the murder by unknown gunmen of a lawyer seeking sedition proceedings against him.

Police registered an “abetment to murder” case against former cricket hero Khan, 70, who faces dozens of charges since his ouster in a parliamentary vote of confidence in April last year.

Khan, who has not been charged in connection with the lawyer’s murder, has dismissed all the cases against him as concocted by his opponents.

Tarar holds IK ‘responsible’ for lawyer’s murder in Quetta

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s information secretary, Rauf Hasan, did not respond to a request for comment.

Provincial government spokesman Babar Khan said Khan could face formal charges if and when the murder case goes to trial.

Abdul Razaq, the murdered lawyer, had filed a court petition seeking sedition proceedings against Khan for dissolving his government after the no-confidence motion.

Razaq was on his way to court on Tuesday when gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed him, police said.

Razaq’s son, Siraj Ahmad, also a lawyer, told police that his father had been killed by unknown men with the “abetment of the former prime minister”, according to a police report filed by him and seen by Reuters.

It was not immediately clear how the link between unknown gunmen and Khan was made.