ECP directs Islamabad police to arrest PTI chief

Seeks Islamabad’s advocate general services as prosecutor for next hearing

ISLAMABAD: After issuing his arrest warrant a day earlier, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Friday directed Islamabad police to arrest the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan and to present him before the commission on September 25.

The directives were given in a letter sent to Islamabad’s senior superintendent of police. The ECP also sent a communiqué informing the Islamabad advocate general that the commission would conduct a hearing of the case against Imran on September 25 and would need his services as a prosecutor.

On Thursday, the ECP issued a bailable warrant for the arrest of the PTI chief after he failed to personally appear before the polling supervisory body in a contempt case. The commission on Friday also released its written order, signed by Chief Election Commissioner Sardar Raza Khan and four ECP members.



The PTI chief can avoid handcuffs if he obtains pre-arrest bail.

A show-cause notice for contempt, dated August 24, was issued on an application filed in January this year by Akbar S Babar – a former PTI leader and the main petitioner in a pending case regarding the PTI’s alleged receipt of illegal foreign-funding.

The notice was served after Imran allegedly declined to submit the party’s detailed accounts and instead cast aspersions on the ECP by calling it ‘biased’.

Imran has already challenged the ECP’s show-cause notice in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), where a three-judge bench on Thursday heard his appeal. But that bench has adjourned hearings till September 20 without granting a stay order against the ECP’s show-cause notice or arrest warrant.

The ECP notice accused Imran of “having chosen not to submit an unconditional apology, thereby obstructing the administration of justice and willfully flouting the directions of the commission.”



It adds that despite being given repeated opportunities, the PTI chief refused to tender an unconditional apology in utter disregard of the commission’s direction.

The ECP went on to accuse him of lowering the authority of the commission and “bringing it into disrepute and disrespect and to interfere with, obstruct, interrupt and prejudice the process of law and the due course of proceedings, and scandalising the commission”.

On Thursday Imran’s new counsel Babar Awan told the ECP bench that his client was ready to appear before the commission but could not show up as he had returned from abroad just an hour back.

Not satisfied with his arguments, the ECP issued a bailable arrest warrant for the PTI chief, asking him to appear in person on September 25.

Later, an IHC bench – comprising Justice Aamer Farooq, Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb – did not allow Awan’s request to suspend the ECP warrant.

The bench remarked that hearing of the case before the ECP was fixed for September 25 whereas the court intended to decide the matter before the ECP’s next hearing. Subsequently, after hearing Awan’s arguments for around an hour, the bench adjourned the case till September 20 for further arguments.