Imaan Mazari remanded into police custody for three days in terror case

An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Islamabad on Tuesday granted human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari's three-day physical remand to the Islamabad police in a terror case registered against her in the federal capital's Barakahu Police Station.

The development came after the additional district and sessions judge, Abual Hasnat, approved prosecutor Raja Naveed plea seeking the rights activists' physical remand.

The court had earlier reserved its decision after listening to arguments from the prosecutor and Mazari's counsel.

A day earlier, Imaan’s was arrested in a new terror case from outside Adiala jail in Rawalpindi soon after an ATC court approved Mazari’s and Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) leader Ali Wazir's bails in a sedition case pertaining to the controversial speech against state institutions.

The Imaan’s counsel had said the police did not inform them about the case in which she had been arrested.

Before ordering the remand, the judge had allowed Imaan to meet her mother Shireen Mazari in the courtroom.

During his arguments today, the prosecutor maintained that the police wanted Imaan’s remand now, maintaining that the trial had not been initiated yet.

Right now we have to collect evidence against Imaan Mazari,” the prosecutor told the court.

Meanwhile, the human rights lawyer’s counsel, Zainab Janjua opposed the police request for her client’s remand.

It is not necessary for a suspect to be kept in custody in the kind of investigation that the police want to conduct, she said.

“The Supreme Court said that it is not necessary to arrest the suspect in every case. Imaan Mazari is a lawyer herself, she is not running away,” she said, adding that booking her client in the terror case for victimization.