PTI Chairman Imran Khan appeared in the Lahore High Court on Friday seeking protective bail in a case pertaining to making allegations against top officers of state institutions and inciting mutiny.

On April 6, Manzoor Ahmed Khan, a magistrate, had filed a first information report (FIR) at the city’s Ramna police station against Imran for “spreading hatred between the institutions and the public” and for “trying to cause unforgivable damage to the institutions and their top officers”.

On April 10, the former premier approached the Islamabad High Court, requesting that the mutiny case against him at Ramna station be quashed. The hearing was indefinitely adjourned on April 12 after IHC Justice Aamer Farooq summoned Magistrate Khan for the next hearing, asking him to submit a response.

Imran’s counsel for that hearing, Faisal Chaudhry, had raised an objection on the jurisdiction that the incident had occurred in Lahore but an FIR was filed in Islamabad.

Today, Justice Ali Baqar Najafi presided over the hearing at the LHC while Barrister Salman Safdar appeared in the court as Imran’s counsel.

The counsel requested the court for Imran’s protective bail, citing that he was to go to Islamabad on April 18. The court then granted the bail till April 26.

In a video shared by the PTI’s official account in which Imran is responding to a question on the case against him, he said, “Whoever is saying this (that Imran tried to divide the army), there is no bigger idiot in the world than them.

“In a society — whichever institution it may be — if it is doing something wrong and you do not criticise it, you are damaging the society. You also criticise your child when he does something wrong.”

He continued: “You end criticism and society gets left behind.”

Responding to another question that how his speeches amounted to “creating a divide in the army”, he said the “whole world would make fun of it [the allegation] once the news reaches them as the world knows me”.

The hearing

Barrister Safdar informed the court that another FIR had been registered against Imran Khan.

Justice Najafi then asked him to read the contents of the FIR aloud, which the lawyer did.

After Imran’s counsel read out the FIR, Justice Najafi asked him if his client wanted to appear in the relevant court in Islamabad. Barrister Safdar responded in the affirmative.

“An FIR was filed by gathering words from different speeches of Imran Khan,” he added, referring to the April 6 criminal complaint.

The counsel then requested the court to provide his client with protective bail until after Eid, as he had to go to Islamabad on April 18.

The court accepted the request and granted the PTI chief protective bail until April 26.

The FIR

The FIR, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, was registered under sections 138 (abetment of act of insubordination by soldier, sailor or airman), 500 (punishment for defamation) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

According to the FIR, in a speech from Zaman Park Lahore on March 19 that was aired on BOL News, Imran made several allegations against a senior officer of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and allegedly conducted a “character assassination”.

The FIR mentioned the PTI chief’s speeches on November 4 and 11, 2022 and October 28 and 29, 2022, in which he allegedly used inappropriate words for the ISI and army officials. It said Imran had used offensive language and had threatened the families of senior officers.

It also alleged he provoked extremists and put the lives of the family members of a senior officer under constant threat, it added.

The complainant further alleged the former prime minister damaged the army’s reputation through his statements, as a result of which foreign agencies took advantage of the situation and attacked Imran and tried to create a rift between the public and the army.

He claimed that the purpose of Imran’s speeches was to “make the soldiers revolt against their oath and the officers through a conspiracy”, for which it also uses Twitter and other social media platforms.

The FIR further said that through these speeches, the former premier “tried to create such an atmosphere among the top army officers and other soldiers that they do not listen to their officer’s commands”.

Additional reporting by Umer Burney