ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi was allegedly manhandled by the Rawalpindi police as they re-arrested him outside Adiala Jail on Wednesday.
As per details, Punjab police re-arrested Qureshi after he was released on the Supreme Court order from Adiala Jail on bail in the cipher case.
The arrest came after Rawalpindi Deputy Commissioner Hasan Waqar Cheema revoked Qureshi’s detention orders, issued a day earlier, on the police’s request. A notification confirming this withdrawal was issued.
The deputy commissioner wrote in the order that he was satisfied that Qureshi’s detention was necessary and “expedient in public interest” to prevent him from acting in any manner prejudicial to the public safety or the maintenance of public order. The former foreign minister was arrested by RA Bazaar police in the May 9 GHQ attack case. On Tuesday last, PTI Vice President Qureshi was detained in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail for 15 days under 3-MPO. Expressing frustration, Qureshi, while addressing the public and media from an armoured vehicle, said, “I was released on bail by the Supreme Court. This is cruelty; I am being penalized for serving the nation.” Qureshi said that police were making a mockery of the Supreme Court’s orders. “They are arresting me again in a false case,” he said. “I represented the nation, I am innocent and I am being targeted for political revenge without any reason,” he said. Responding to the former minister’s arrest, PTI chairman Barrister Gohar urged the apex court’s intervention, emphasising Qureshi’s importance to the party. Stressing fair elections, Barrister Gohar stated that, “Given the Supreme Court’s grant of bail, no further arrests should occur.” Highlighting Qureshi’s history of arrests, he questioned the justification for Section 3 MPO, stressing its infringement on rights. Meanwhile, a petition was filed in the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) against the “unlawful abduction” of Shah Mahmood Qureshi. The petitioner, who is Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s daughter, has demanded the electoral body to fulfil its constitutional responsibilities and ensure the safety and release of his father, who is contesting the elections for multiple constituencies of the National Assembly and provincial assemblies of Punjab and Sindh. Meher Bano stated in the petition that Qureshi had been granted bail by the Supreme Court, and referred to the remark of Justice Athar Minallah, who stated: “The incarceration of the petitioners will not serve any useful purpose. Moreover, their release on bail during the period of elections would ensure ‘genuine elections and thus enable the people to exercise the right to express their will effectively and meaningfully.”