GUJRAT: Police raided the Zahoor Elahi House in the city on the last day of submission of nomination papers on Sunday. They allegedly detained a couple of senior lawyers as well as the seconder and proposer of the nomination papers of PTI President Parvez Elahi and his son Moonis Elahi as they were coming our of the assistant commissioner’s office, claimed the PTI sources.

Those detained included former secretary general Gujrat District Bar Association Arfan Basheer Kang and Chaudhry Fayaz Gilanwala.

A former union council chairman Afzal Samman, who had proposed the nomination papers of Qaisara Elahi, the wife of Parvez Elahi, was also detained from the outside of the office of AC, the returning officer of NA-64.

In his tweet, Moonis blamed the sons of PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain for sending the police to the family’s ancestral house to arrest their own paternal aunts.

The Elahi family’s nomination papers submitted after LHC intervention

Responding to the tweet, former federal minister and Shujaat’s son Salik Hussain said he had come to know about the incident after someone showed him Moonis’ tweet. He asked his cousin to avoid ruining the family’s respect for the sake of the PTI votes as the entire nation witnessed the fuss.

However, the officials of local police expressed ignorance of the raid on the Zahoor Elahi House and did not confirm the arrests.

The members of the Gujrat DBA condemned the arrest of their colleagues during the police raid and demanded their immediate release. In a late night development, police released the detained lawyers.

On the other hand, the nomination papers of Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, his wife Qaisara Elahi, their son Moonis Elahi and Sumaira Elahi (the youngest sister of Shujaat) succeed to submit their nomination papers for at least three different constituencies, namely NA-64 (Gujrat city-Kunjah), PP-32 (Kunjah) and PP-34 (Dinga-Mungowal) where they submitted papers on Sunday.

Ms Qaisara and her sister Sumaira had been trying to file their nomination papers for the last three days. The nomination papers of all these family members were filed after the Lahore High Court on Saturday issued orders for the district returning officers and police of Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin districts to allow the PTI leaders and their family to file the nomination papers.

Moonis filed at least two nomination papers on the same seat of PP-34 whereas on the other two seats, he filed only one nomination paper each.

The nomination papers of former PTI MPA Mian Akhtar Hayat have also been filed for PP-34. He had been in hiding for the last few months whereas another former PTI MPA Chaudhary Arshad of Sara-i-Alamgir who had earlier announced to quit the PTI and politics also filed his nomination papers for PP-27.

Former PTI MPA from Lalamusa, Liaqat Bhadar, did not file his papers but his son, Ali Liaqat, submitted the papers. Former PTI MPA Saleem Sarwar Jaura has also not filed his papers but his nephew Usman Saeed Jaura has replaced him for NA-64.

At least 85 nomination papers were filed on the last day of the process and 350 nomination papers have been filed by different candidates for the four NA and eight PA seats of the district.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2023