KASUR: Local police, after inclusion of the Section 7 of the Anti Terrorism Act (ATA) in the FIR, arrested 17 suspects out of the 80 who had been booked for allegedly using abusive language against the judiciary and sensitive agencies during a protest here on April 13.

The suspects were initially booked under bailable sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) – 166, 506, 341, 228 ( intentional insult or interruption to public servant sitting in judicial proceeding), 109, 147 and 149 (offences against public tranquility), and were granted bail by the court.

Raids were being conducted to arrest the remaining suspects who allegedly belonged to the ruling PML-N.

SP (Investigation) Mirza Qudoos Beg was leading the police teams tasked with arrest of the rest of the suspects.

The arrested suspects, on Monday, were produced before the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Judge Sajjad Ahmed.

On police’s request, the court granted a five-day physical remand of the suspects.

Court grants five-day physical remand of suspects

Earlier, Public Prosecutor Rauf Wattoo argued that it was a treason case as the suspects had delivered provoking speeches and chanted hateful slogans against the apex court and sensitive agencies.

He also sought court order for conducting photogrammetric test of the videos of the protest.

When the court asked about the two main suspects, Nasir Khan and Jamil Khan, police said they had escaped.

The suspects will be produced before the ATC on April 28.

On April 13, scores of PML-N workers gathered at the outhouse of the party MNA, Sheikh Waseem Akhtar, on the Shahbaz Khan Road here allegedly following a protest call given by the parliamentarian. The protesters took out a procession that concluded at the Kashmir Chowk.

The protesters then blocked Ferozepur Road near Kashmir Chowk by burning tyres and threw traffic out of gear. During the agitation abusive slogans were allegedly raised against the judiciary and sensitive agencies.

A-Division police, on April 18, booked 80 PML-N activists, five of them nominated, including some ruling party lawmakers, Municipal Committee chairman, vice chairman, Baitul Maal and Market Committee chairmen for staging the protest demonstration against the verdict of the apex court that announced lifetime disqualification for former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

The police arrested 45 suspects, including the MNA , MPA Naeem Safdar, Nasir Khan, Jamil Khan, Ayaz Khan, and MC vice-chairman Ahmed Latif.

The police registered two different FIRs; one on the complaint of police official Abdul Rasheed and the other on the complaint of retired major Habibur Rehman.

Later, Magistrate Adil Sarwar Sial released all suspects, including the parliamentarians of the ruling party on April 19, against surety bonds of Rs100,000 each.

Eleven of the suspects submitted their surety bonds the same day and were released, while the rest of them (29) were sent to judicial lock-up. As many as 23 suspects were released on April 21 while six were still in jail for want of surety bonds.

Defence council, on April 19, had argued that the suspects were poor people and police arrested them just to show performance to their high-ups.

Our staff reporter adds: The PPP has alleged that innocent citizens are being taken into custody in Kasur in the anti-judiciary rant case.

The party’s Central Punjab General Secretary Chaudhry Manzoor alleged on Monday that the government was arresting innocent citizens and workers of rival political parties though the real culprits who raised anti-judiciary slogans in a rally in Kasur could be easily identified in the CCTV footage and video clips doing rounds on social media.

He said relatives of people, who had nothing to do with the rally, were being picked up by police. He demanded the government refrain from harassing innocent people.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2018