AG terms PML-N workers’ protest ‘non-cognizable’ offence

PESHAWAR: The advocate general Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has said that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) workers’ act of hoisting their party flag on the assembly building and protest outside the assembly against the provincial government did not constitute a cognizable offence.

In legal opinion to the KP Police Department, the letter carrying the signature of KP Advocate General Abdul Lateef Khan Yousafzai and Additional Advocate General Waqar Ahmad stated that in reference of the letter send by the office of capital city police officer on September 19, the act of the PML-N workers does not constitute cognizable offence.

The PML-N workers had staged the protest in reaction to PTI’s planned march on Raiwind, which started on March 30. “I have gone through a copy of Naqal Mad No 9 registered on September 11, as well as a letter of special secretary (admin) Provincial Assembly and video recording available on the enclosed DVD. The contents of SHO [of] police station East Cantt incorporated in daily dairy on September 11 say that workers of PML-N raised slogans and held a brief sit-in on the main road outside the premises of the provincial assembly. Almost similar is the text of letter of secretary KP Assembly. Visuals in the DVD are also depicting the same story,” the AAG Waqar Ahmad stated in his legal opinion. He further stated that the protesters have neither entered the premises of the KP Assembly, nor have damaged anything.

The KP police had sought legal opinion of the AG office on the complaint of secretary KP Assembly against the PML-N workers. The secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly formally sent a letter to the police department high-ups to take action against the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) activists for allegedly attacking and hoisting their party’s flags on walls and grills of the provincial assembly building.

The secretary in its complaint has stated that during a protest by the PML-N workers and miscreants on September 11 attacked on the KP Assembly building and hoisted their party’s flags on walls and grills of the assembly secretariat.

He also requested identification of the party leaders, workers and miscreants involved in the incident and action against them under the law.Following the incident, KP Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser had taken a strong notice of the act of PML-N workers who hoisted the party flags on provincial assembly building and vowed to take legal action against those who took law into their own hands. He stated that the provincial assembly was a symbol of unity and democracy.

Chief Minister Pervez Khattak had also condemned the attack and said that strict action would be taken against the hooligans. The PTI and PML-N lawmakers in the KP Assembly also exchanged hot words over the issue later.