ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Thursday moved the Islamabad High Court (IHC) challenging their arrest in a new Toshakhana reference filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
They filed the petition through Barrister Salman Safdar and Khalid Yousuf Chaudhry Advocate and cited Chairman NAB and others as respondents.
The petitioners’ counsels argued that the arrest is illegal and requested their immediate release. They maintained that in light of the peculiar facts and aforementioned circumstances “it is respectfully prayed that arrest of the petitioners may kindly he declared as unlawful and illegal and petitioners may kindly be released in the instant case by issuing strict direction to authorities to not arrest the petitioners in any other case without taking permission from this court.”
In the petition filed in the IHC against the arrests, the counsel further maintained that Khan and Bushra had been “illegally” remanded into NAB’s custody while their arrest had affected the fundamental rights of “liberty and pre-arrest”.
On July 13, a team of the anti-corruption watchdog headed by Deputy Director Mohsin Haroon had arrested Khan and Bushra from the Adiala Jail in the new reference related to alleged “misuse of power for acquiring Toshakhana gifts”.
The NAB team rearrested Bushra Bibi after she was released from Adiala Jail’s Gate No 3, following her exoneration in the iddat case.