IHC irked at PTI workers' detention

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Tuesday expressed its displeasure with police over rounding up people from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Secretariat the other day and holding them for over 10 hours without any reason.

IHC Chief Justice Aamer Farooq heard the petition of Maimoona Kamal over Monday's raid by the Islamabad police and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) against the PTI's digital media wing. They arrested PTI information Secretary Raoof Hasan and took several others into custody.

During the hearing, the deputy inspector general of police, Operations, and the FIA's director of Cyber Crime Wing and the additional attorney general (AAG) appeared in the court. Expressing his displeasure, the chief justice told the officials that arrest could not be made at the whim of the investigating officer.

He asked whether it was necessary to arrest all the people sitting in the PTI Secretariat or whether it was a crime to be in that office. The chief justice said that the petition was that the police and the FIA had kidnapped PTI workers, adding that order would be passed on the habeas corpus.

The AAG told the court that the FIA had registered a case in which 10 men and two women were involved. He said those nominated in the case had been arrested and all others were allowed to leave on personal guarantees.

The AAG further informed the court that none of the six women were arrested, rather all of them were allowed to leave on personal guarantees. The chief justice said that 32 people were picked up on Monday but the case was registered against 11 and 21 people were kept illegally for 10 hours.

The chief justice said it would be unfortunate if someone was arrested for just being there. The judge asked if no arrest was to be made, how could 32 people were held for 10 hours, and that was it not a kidnapping.

Advocate Ali Bukhari told the court that the mobile phones of all the people had not been returned. On that the Chief Justice asked whether the mobile phones of these people were with the FIA. The cyber crimes director replied that they had mobiles phones of 10 people, kept for technical analysis.

The chief justice asked under which law the mobile phones of those who were not arrested were being kept. He told the officers that keeping someone's property was theft and told them to return the belongings of those people.