RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Wednesday was re-arrested by Rawalpindi police from outside Adiala jail in connection with a case registered regarding the May 9 violence after he was released from the prison in the cipher case.

Police manhandled, pushed, and dragged the former foreign minister towards an armoured personnel carrier (APC) deputed near the prison gate soon after he was released after the Deputy Commissioner (DC) Rawalpindi withdrew an order for detaining him for 15 days under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) as he was granted bail by the Supreme Court in the cipher case.

Qureshi before going inside the APC said that the police were making a mockery of the apex court’s orders. “Supreme Court has released me and they are arresting me again in a bogus case,” he said. “I represented the nation, I am innocent, and I am being politically victimised,” he said.

Police sources said that the PTI’s vice chairman has been arrested in ‘GHQ attack case’ and will be produced before an anti-terrorism court (ATC).

Deputy Commissioner Rawalpindi Hasan Waqar Cheema had issued Qureshi’s detention order a day earlier over his alleged involvement in the May 9 violent protests.

The detention was issued and withdrawn shortly before the issuance of his release orders by the Special Court Judge Abual Hasnat Zulqarnain in the cipher case as the Supreme Court approved his bail in the state secrets case last week.

The detention order by the DC said the city police officer (CPO) had intimated via a letter that as per the report of station house officer Saddar Beroni police station the accused Qureshi was a member of a political party involved in anti-state activities and causing damage to public and private property.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023