ATC remands ex-governor in judicial custody

Wife approaches LHC for recovery of PTI leader

LAHORE:

An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) judge sent former governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema on 14-day judicial remand on Thursday in a case registered against him over allegedly disturbing law and order, setting ablaze state properties and attacking police officials.

The Gulberg police produced the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader before the court, seeking his physical remand for investigation, but the judge tuned down the request and remanded him in judicial custody.

The judge also sent 11 other accused on seven-day judicial remand for their identification parade in the case.

Meanwhile, former governor Cheema’s wife knocked the doors of the Lahore High Court, seeking direction to the authorities concerned to produce her husband before the court after getting him recovered from alleged illegal custody of the police.

A number of PTI leaders, including former governor Cheema, were taken into custody from his home in Lahore in the early hours of Wednesday in a case of vandalism during protests after the arrest of PTI chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan.

Petitioner Rabia Cheema, wife of Omar Cheema, contended in the petition that irrelevant First Information Reports (FIRs) were being registered against the PTI leaders and workers despite them having nothing to do with the cases.

She contended in the petition that the PTI leadership was being subjected to political victimisation and the cases were politically motivated. She submitted that those who had been kept in illegal custody had nothing to do with the cases, adding that they had been humiliated by implicating
them in forged and false cases.

The petitioner requested the high court to pass directions to the police officials concerned to produce the leader after recovering him from illegal custody of the police.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2023.