LAHORE    -    The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday heard a petition seeking directions to remove Pakistan Teh­reek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan as party chief. The court, af­ter hearing detailed arguments of the petitioner’s counsel reserved its verdict for sometime on the ques­tion whether the matter should be forwarded to a single bench or full bench for hearing. Later, the court directed to fix the petition before a single bench for hearing on April 12.

Justice Abid Hussain Chattha heard the petition filed by a citizen, Mu­hammad Junaid. The petitioner had submitted that the Election Commis­sion of Pakistan (ECP) had disquali­fied Imran Khan in Toshakhana case and he had no legal standing to con­tinue as PTI chairman. He submit­ted that he approached the ECP for removing Imran Khan from party’s chairmanship but to no avail. He re­quested the court to issue directions for removing Imran Khan from the office of PTI chairman.

Meanwhile, Justice Anwaar Hus­sain also heard a petition seeking re­moval of Imran Khan as PTI chief.

The court heard the petition as an objection case after the LHC of­fice put an objection, saying that the identical petition had been dis­missed as withdrawn earlier.

The court, after hearing brief argu­ments of the petitioner-counsel, re­served its verdict. Advocate Muham­mad Afaq had filed the petition for removal of Imran Khan as PTI chief. Also, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan Monday de­manded an inquiry into the death of Station House Officer (SHO) Amir Shahzad, the complainant and a criti­cal witness of the Wazirabad assassi­nation attempt on the PTI chairman.

In a statement, the PTI chief said that the SHO was a critical witness in unearthing the conspirators behind this assassination plot being inquired into by the Joint Investigation Team (JIT). He also alleged that records of the JIT probing the Wazirabad inci­dent had been tampered with to dis­tort the facts. Imran Khan likened the death of SHO Amir Shahzad with the deaths of FIA investigator Dr Rizwan and Maqsood Chaprassi saying these deaths also occurred in mysterious circumstances. 

“It is equally important to recall the mysterious circumstances surround­ing the death of FIA investigator Dr Riz­wan as well as the deaths of Maqsood Chaprassi and all other witnesses in Shahbaz Sharif’s money laundering case,” Khan said. “We demand a proper inquiry into the sudden death of SHO Amir Shehzad, of a heart attack. He had registered the FIR of Wazirabad assassination attempt on me & was a critical witness in unearthing the con­spirators behind this assassination plot being inquired into by the JIT.”