A team of the Anti Corruption Establishment (ACE), Punjab, and the Lahore police conducted a raid in Lahore on Friday night to arrest the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Central President Chaudhry Parvez Elahi.
The raiding teams remained on the premises of Elahi’s residence for more than three hours during which they took into custody around nine people into custody, but were unable to find Elahi.
The ACE team, led by Additional Director Waqas Hassan, along with heavy contingents of the Anti-Riot Force (ARF), raided the residence of the former Punjab chief minister in a case reportedly registered at the ACE Gujranwala.
The raid at Elahi’s residence came hours after the ACE arrested a close friend of Parvez Elahi’s son, Moonis, on Friday. Also the provincial anti-graft body booked the former chairperson of Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) over corruption charges.
Police gathered outside the residence of Elahi on Zahoor Elahi Road at around 11 pm. Senior police officers, including superintendents of police (SPs) Ammara Sherazi and Dost Muhammad, besides the area station house officers (SHOs) were also present.
The ACE team tried to enter the house but they met with fierce resistance. The employees of Elahi threw stones, when the police made an attempt to enter the premises. A petrol bomb was also allegedly hurled during the raid.
Police had sealed off Zahoor Elahi Road at both ends before launching the operation. At the outset, the raiding team had approached the legal team of Elahi, which informed them that Elahi had secured protective bail from the court.
When the negotiations between the legal team and ACE team failed, the ARF made an attempt to enter the premises. However, it was met with severe resistance from the workers inside the house.
The police made further attempts to break the gate, as they climbed over the wall but because to the stone pelting, their attempts failed again. Reportedly water mixed with petrol and kerosene oil was also thrown at the police from inside the house.
After multiple attempts failed, the police finally deployed an armoured personnel carrier (APC), which tore down the main gate and opened a passage for the police to enter the premises. The police them arrested over seven PTI workers.
The policemen then broke down the windowpanes as well the doors to enter the house. In the drawing room inside, the police met with the female cousins of Elahi, who told them that he was not at home.
After searching Elahi's house, the police also moved to check the residence of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, which is located in the same sprawling complex that has the same entry point. Shujaat’s son, Salik Hussain, told the police that Elahi's was not in their house.
Later, the police retreated at about 2 am without arresting Elahi. According to media reports nine people, including two women, had been taken into custody during the raid.
“The operation is over,” ACE Additional Director Waqas Hassan later told the media. He added that they thoroughly searched the houses of Chaudhry Shujat and Chaudhry Wajahat also but could not find Elahi.
Hassan said that they held talks for over an hour for the search operation. But when a breakthrough could not be made they had to take an extreme measure. He said that Elahi was nominated in a case of corruption in construction of a road.
The raid came just hours after the second round of the negotiations between the PTI and the coalition government to break the impasse over the elections for the Punjab Assembly.
The PTI chairman Imran Khan “strongly condemned the illegal raid on Pervez Elahi's home with no respect to the women & family mbrs [members] present [in the house]. We are seeing the dismantling of democracy in Pak before our eyes”.
Imran wrote in a late-night tweet: “There is no respect for Constitution, SC [Supreme Court] verdicts, or fundamental rights of the ppl [people] – only law of jungle& fascism. All part of London Plan to demoralise & crush PTI,” he added.
Imran said that a “cabal of crooks and their handlers” attacked his house earlier and now the house of Elahi, adding that this “barbarism” was never seen even during martial law period of the military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
“Enough is enough. Tomorrow [Saturday] I will give roadmap to our nation on how to stand up against this destruction of our Constitution & democracy,” the PTI chairman wrote on the microblogging website.
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