ISLAMABAD: An Islamabad district and sessions court rejected a request by the capital police on Wednesday for a seven-day extension in the physical remand of PTI leader Shahbaz Gill, who was arrested earlier this month on charges of sedition and inciting mutiny through his controversial remarks on a TV channel.

The judgement comes as the two-day period of Mr Gill’s remand — initially approved last Wednesday — expired, much later than the scheduled date as the court noted at previous hearings that the remand began late and thus remained incomplete.

The judgement was issued by Judicial Magistrate Malik Aman, who sent Mr Gill on judicial remand.

The court said in its order the law required that every investigation be completed without unnecessary delay and the police were bound to submit an investigation report in the court.

If the investigation was still incomplete 14 days after the FIR was lodged, the officer in charge of the police station was required to forward an interim report to the magistrate through a prosecutor within three days, the order said.

Mr Gill, arrested on Aug 9, was initially sent to judicial remand for two days. The court noted that neither an interim nor a complete report had been presented by the prosecution despite the lapse of 15 days.

“Physical remand cannot be granted repeatedly, for the same purpose, without any positive progress,” it ruled, sending the PTI leader to the judicial lock-up.

The magistrate instructed the police to produce him before the court on Sept 7. The verdict enabled Mr Gill to apply for post-arrest bail.

During the hearing, special prosecutor Rizwan Abbasi argued that the police needed Mr Gill’s custody for seven more days for a polygraph test to ascertain whether he was telling the truth.

Mr Gill was using multiple phones, the prosecutor said, adding the police had traced and recovered some of them, but his “most important cell phone was still missing”.

The defence counsel told the court the police were seeking Mr Gill’s custody “to torture him”.

Meanwhile, when Mr Gill was being escorted by the police outside of the court, he was asked by a reporter on the nature of his alleged sexual assault, to which Mr Gill claimed it was “absolutely right”, elaborating that he was given “electric shocks to the genital area”.

Mr Gill alleged that he was subjected to torture so that he would give statements against “someone”. While leaving the court, he also raised slogans urging people to raise their voice for Jameel Farooqui, an anchor and vlogger who claimed to have been stripped and beaten while in police custody.

HRW seeks probe

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Watch (HRW) has demanded an “immediate, independent, and transparent” investigation into Mr Gill’s torture allegations, and urged Pakistan to legislate and make torture a criminal offence.

“Pakistan’s sedition law, based on a colonial-era British provision, is vague and overbroad and has often been used against political opponents,” the New York-based rights group said in a statement on Wednesday.

“By passing the torture bill, Pakistan will start a long-overdue process of reform to ensure that future allegations of torture are transparently investigated and that those responsible held accountable,” said John Sifton, HRW’s Asia advocacy director.

Rashid, Murad get interim bail

Former interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and PTI leaders, including Murad Saeed, were granted interim bail in a case registered against them for staging a rally in violation of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

ADSJ Faizan Haider Gillani accepted their pre-arrest bail plea against Rs20,000 surety bonds until Sept 9, when the next hearing is scheduled.

The court also issued notice to the state and sought a reply on Mr Ahmed’s application.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2022