-PTI Chairman’s Chief of Staff handed over to Capital Police after brief tussle at Adiala
-Islamabad Court remands Shahbaz Gill to Police Custody for 2 days
-Imran condemns Sessions Court’s decision
-Gill is in fragile state of mind, says PTI
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Following heated standoff between Islamabad and Rawalpindi Police over the custody of Shahbaz Gill, the Adiala Jail authorities have handed-over the custody of the PTI leader to the former over Sessions Court’s orders.
Islamabad Police Wednesday left Jail with Gill as Punjab Police personnel returned back after hours-long drama outside the jail premises. It was further learnt that Gill will be first taken to PIMS for medical checkup.
The development came after an Islamabad District and Sessions Court on Wednesday approved a two-day physical remand of PTI leader Shahbaz Gill at the request of the Capital Police.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Zeba Chaudhry announced a verdict that was reserved earlier in the day.
“Muhammad Shahbaz Shabbir Gill is given in the custody of the investigating officer for the purpose of investigation for 48 hours,” the Court order reads.
The judge also directed the investigation officer to get the respondent medically examined and submit a report to the court.
The PTI has alleged that Gill was tortured in police custody previously and remains in danger of being subjected to further torture if he is handed back to the Islamabad police.
The PTI leadership has reacted strongly to the Islamabad District and Sessions Court’s orders.
PTI Chairman Imran Khan condemned the Sessions Court’s decision, saying that he is concerned about Gill being sent into police custody once more.
“Gill is in a fragile state of mental and physical health because of the torture inflicted upon him when he was abducted and taken to an undisclosed location,” Imran wrote on Twitter.
He said that Gill’s remand is a “part of the conspiracy to target me and PTI by forcibly getting false statements against us similar to what they have been doing against social media activists”.
The PTI chairman vowed to take legal and political action to counter the “extra-constitutional and extra-legal actions being devised against us”. Meanwhile, PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry also criticised the order and said that “judges sending political workers in remand for
torture while knowing everything are criminals”.
Fawad said that there is no parallel to the way human rights are being “utterly destroyed” in Pakistan. He said that Gill is being sent into police custody for “torture” instead of interrogation.
In a Twitter post, PTI leader Shireen Mazari said: “The regime change conspirators are getting desperate to try and get something against Imran Khan, and now using Shahbaz Gill by torturing him to force false statements.”
She said Gill has so far resisted despite “extreme torture”, first when he was “abducted to an unknown location”, and later at a CIA cell.
She further stated that remand into police custody after grant of judicial remand is a “rare” occurrence.
“Pakistan’s descent into fascism is happening at a furious pace but we will resist it to the full,” she added.
Gill was arrested by the Islamabad police on August 9, soon after he made controversial remarks on television that the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) deemed were “highly hateful and seditious”.
The court’s remanding of Gill to Islamabad Police Custody comes less than a week after a court rejected a police request to extend Gill’s two-day physical remand and an additional district and sessions judge dismissed a plea requesting a review of the district court’s order.
A plea challenging these orders was filed by Islamabad Advocate General Jahangir Khan Jadoon in the Islamabad High Court on Saturday last week.
The authorities had maintained in the plea that the physical remand of Gill — who was in judicial custody on charges of sedition and inciting mutiny in the armed forces following his controversial remarks on a private TV channel — is important for the completion of the case’s investigation.
The IHC on Tuesday referred a plea seeking Gill’s physical remand to the sessions court for the hearing.
