Fearing torture in police custody, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry on Sunday submitted a petition to the Kohsar Police Station's magistrate for his medical examination.
The former minister is currently in police custody on a two-day physical remand in the sedition case filed against him for publicly “threatening” the members of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in a media talk.
He was arrested from his Lahore residence last week after a case was registered against him at the Kohsar Police Station on the complaint of an ECP member.
In his petition, Fawad maintained that the federal police were not conducting his medical test, which was a violation of his rights constitutional rights.
Claiming that the police had mentally and physically tortured PTI leaders Senator Azam Khan Swati and Shahbaz Gill, he said that "the police might do the same as they did in the past and this is why they are refraining from conducting my medical".
The former federal information minister urged the magistrate to take immediate notice of the violation of orders.
As per the sources, the Islamabad Police have shifted Fawad to Lahore. The police sources added that his photogrammetry test will be carried out in Lahore.
They said that his voice will be matched in the forensic laboratory.
A day earlier, a local court in the federal capital sent Fawad on a two-day physical remand in the sedition case.
Judicial Magistrate Waqas Ahmed Raja announced the verdict after a district and sessions court accepted the Islamabad Police's petition overturning a decision that sent the former minister on judicial remand and rejected Fawad's plea to discharge him from the case.
In the order issued Saturday, the judicial magistrate ordered the Islamabad Police to produce the former federal information minister before his court on Monday (January 30) upon the expiry of his remand.
PTI Chairman Imran Khan had earlier lashed out at the authorities and said that the manner in which Fawad was presented before the court was proof of the government’s “vindictiveness".
Referring to the current government and its leaders as “pharaohs”, Khan also underscored the treatment meted out to PTI leaders Azam Swati and Shahbaz Gill as proof that the country was in disarray.
In his series of tweets, the PTI chief stated: “Taking Fawad to court handcuffed and head/face covered like a terrorist shows the low and vindictive levels [the] imported government and state have reached.
"The treatment of Fawad and Azam Swati and Gill before him leaves no doubt in people’s mind that now we are a banana republic," the ex-prime minister, who was ousted last April, said.
Khan further added: “The law of the jungle now prevails where might is right & the Constitution & law of the land have been totally subjugated by the Pharaohs of today.”