PA opposition leader seeks post-arrest bail

LAHORE: Pakistani Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) leader Hamza Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday filed a post-arrest bail in the Lahore High Court (LHC) seeking his release under extraordinary circumstances – the pandemic – which is multiplying at an alarming rate in the province.

The opposition leader filed his bail in the assets beyond means inquiry pending with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) through his counsel Amjad Pervez.

He implored the court to grant him bail since a health emergency has been declared throughout the country in the wake of the coronavirus global outbreak.

Under these circumstances, he asserted that the spread of the virus is ‘most relevant’ to prisons.

The confined space of a prison makes it impossible to implement the policy of social distancing that is being advocated throughout the world to prevent the disease’s infliction, he stressed.

The opposition leader contended that prisoners are vulnerable and exposed to suffer irreparably in case of an outbreak.

“A prison outbreak is likely to present a potentially deadly risk to its inmates.”

He cited media reports, stating that a coronavirus patient had already been confirmed in a Jail in Lahore and there was every likelihood of the spread of disease within the jail premises.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2020.