LAHORE: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore Tuesday declared a police search warrant for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s Zaman Park residence “ineffective”.
ATC Judge Abhar Gul Khan, while announcing the reserved verdict on the PTI chief’s plea, said one-time search warrants are not for forever.
The PTI chief had moved the court three days back against the search warrants, naming the state, commissioner of Lahore, DIG operations Lahore, SSP operations Lahore, and others as respondents.
In the plea, the PTI chief claimed that law enforcement personnel secured the war-rants with “malicious intent”.
“It is most respectfully prayed that the search warrant relating to petitioner’s house situated at Zaman Park, Lahore may kindly be set-aside /cancelled/recalled being illegal, unlawful, inappropriate which lacks the requisite legal parameters for a val-id warrant in the interest of justice and fair play,” he said in the plea.
Urging the court to take strict action against the respondents, Khan asked the court to deal with them severely for “their unlawful and illegal misuse of authority under the pretext of the search warrant”.
The authorities had secured the search warrants claiming that they wanted to ar-rest the “terrorists” present inside the PTI chief’s residence. However, when they arrived there on May 19, Khan refused to allow a search operation at his residence. –Agencies
