No criminal case currently registered against Dr Alvi, SHC told

No current case has been registered against former president and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Dr Arif Alvi in the Sindh province, the inspector general of police told the Sindh High Court (SHC) on Thursday.

Filing comments on behalf of the IGP on Dr Alvi’s petition against cases registered against him, the IGP said that no FIR against the petitioner was currently registered against the former president in Sindh.

The court had earlier directed the Sindh government to submit a complete list of FIRs lodged against Dr Alvi in the province. The IGP submitted that reports have been called from Karachi’s additional IG, DIGs East, West and South, CIA and CTD Sindh, and the DIGs of Hyderabad, Sukkur, Shaheed Benazirabad, Larkana and Mirpurkhas Ranges to ensure compliance with the court orders.

He said that reports of different police ranges officers showed that no case had been registered against the petitioner. The DIG South however submitted that one case pertaining to arson, unlawful assembly was registered at the Civil Lines police station against the petitioner in 2018 which was disposed of as A class for lack of evidence.

A constitutional bench of the SHC, headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha, after taking the report on record, observed that petition has now served its purpose and disposed of the petition.

The petitioner’s counsel Ali Tahir earlier said the petitioner has falsely been involved in cases on the basis of political victimisation. He said that a number of FIRs have been lodged against the petitioner in the province.

He pointed out that the petitioner is unaware of those cases and has expressed apprehension that he might be arrested any time in connection with those FIRs. The counsel said that the purpose of the FIRs is to harass the petitioner to discourage him from continuing his peaceful political struggle against the government.

He requested the court to grant protection to the petitioner because there is apprehension that he can be arrested in blind FIRs. He also asked for granting an injunction against the registration of fresh cases against the petitioner.

The SHC had earlier granted protective bail to the former president in three cases registered at different police stations in Punjab. Dr Alvi had moved the SHC for obtaining protective and transitory bail in connection with three criminal cases registered against him at police stations in Mianwali, Taxila and Rawalpindi.