Fawad makes a dash to IHC to avoid re-arrest

Ex-minister condemns May 9 riots

ISLAMABAD    -     PTI central leader Fawad Chaudhry, in an unprecedented situation, rushed back to the Islamabad High Court (IHC) premises to evade his arrest and seek protection, shortly after the court issued his release. The court, while ordering the release of Fawad ordered not to arrest him in any case, including the undis­closed ones, within the lim­its of the federal capital for the next two days. Earlier, af­ter securing bail from the IHC bench, the PTI leader had just sat in his car and bare­ly moved when he saw An­ti-Terrorist Squad personnel moving towards him. See­ing the personnel moving to­wards him, Fawad ran out of his car and rushed into the court premises to evade ar­rest. Then, he moved a peti­tion to seek protective bail while he also filed another petition seeking contempt of court proceedings against the Islamabad police for at­tempting to arrest him de­spite the court orders. Af­ter hearing the matter again, the IHC bench barred the po­lice from arresting the former minister in any “undisclosed” case. During the hearing, the IHC bench said that the Advo­cate General had apprised the court of two cases registered against Fawad Chaudhry be­cause of which the IHC had only granted the PTI leader bail in two cases. Later, the judge approved Fawad’s pro­tective bail for two days and barred the police from arrest­ing the former minister in any case registered against him in Islamabad. It is interesting that the police attempted to arrest the PTI leader despite the fact that he had submit­ted an undertaking in the IHC of not violating the section 144 and taking part in pro­tests. Later, talking to me­dia outside the IHC building, Fawad Chaudhry condemned the events of May 9, particu­larly mentioning vandalism at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi and Lahore corps commander’s residence.

ePaper - Nawaiwaqt