PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Friday ordered Peshawar police to immediately free PTI lawyer and election candidate from Kohat district Aftab Alam and turned a habeas corpus petition against his arrest from the court’s premises into a contempt plea against the relevant police officials.

Expressing annoyance over the capital police’s act of whisking away Mr Alam from the high court’s premises, a bench consisting of Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Wiqar Ahmad ordered Peshawar superintendent of police (Saddar Circle) Abdul Salam and station house officer of the East Cantonment police station Asif Khan to submit their separate replies to the contempt petition within a week.

It fixed the next hearing for Jan 18.

“This is not a police state that you will pick up anyone without evidence. When you are bound by the law, then how you could take away a lawyer from the high court’s premises,” Justice Shakeel remarked.

Justice Wiqar observed that the Supreme Court had ordered authorities not to arrest anyone from the court’s premises.

Begins contempt proceedings against police over Aftab Alam’s detention

He wondered whether these were policemen or kidnappers that they showed up on the court’s premises to pick up people whose cases were scheduled for hearing.

Advocate Aftab Alam, who is also the PTI’s candidate from PK-90 Kohat, was taken away from the premises of the high court on Thursday by police officials in plainclothes as well as in uniform.

The detainee went there in connection with different cases, including those on election matters.

Senior counsel Syed Sikandar Hayat Shah had filed a habeas corpus petition on behalf of a cousin of the detainee, Eid Rehman, against his detention.

The matter was initially taken up for hearing by Chief Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan, who referred it to a bench consisting of Justice Ijaz Anwar and Justice Syed Arshad Ali.

The bench ordered the police to produce the detainee on Friday.

Advocate Syed Sikandar Hayat argued that the detainee had already been granted protective bails in eight cases, some of which were related to the holding of a PTI workers convention in Kohat last month.

He argued that in an earlier petition of the detainee, the government had conceded that only the said eight cases were pending against him and he was not required in any other case.

The lawyer also produced copies of the orders of different courts, including the high court’s for the grant of transit bails to the detainee.

PHC Bar Association General Secretary Lajbar Khan Khalil and former president of the association, Fida Gul, also turned up in the case and contended that arresting a person from the premises of the high court clearly showed the local police had been undermining the sanctity of this court.

Additional advocate general Danyal Asad Chamkani contended that the detainee had not been appearing before the relevant court and didn’t join investigation into those cases against him.

Officials of Peshawar police said they didn’t arrest the PTI lawyer and instead, he was taken away by Kohat police.

The bench observed whether the detainee was taken away by genies as both Peshawar and Kohat police denied arresting him.

During the hearing, Justice Wiqar Ahmad observed that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary and inspector general of police had declared in front of a bench headed by the chief justice that the court’s orders won’t be violated.

The bench observed that the PTI lawyer had been kept in illegal detention for a day.

It later decided to convert the habeas corpus petition into a contempt one declaring the matter serious.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2024