Baton charge on PTI workers, FIRs registration

No further adjournment in writ petition by KP CM, minister:      PHC

PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court (PHC) bench observed on Monday there would be no further adjournment in a writ petition filed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister and his cabinet member.

The provincial government had requested the court to declare as illegal the baton charge on the workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and registration of first information reports (FIRs) against them in various police stations in Islamabad and Punjab.

“It will be the last chance for the petitioners to adjourn the case due to lawyer’s engagement in the Supreme Court,” a division bench comprising Justice Lal Jan Khattak and Justice Ijaz Anwar told Babar Awan, counsel for Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Health Minister Shahram Khan Tarakai in the case.

However, Prosecutor General of Punjab, Ihtesham Qadir, Additional Attorney General Manzoor Khalil and Additional Advocate General Rabnawaz appeared in the case.

It was for the second time that the case was adjourned on the request of the petitioner’s lawyer. The court fixed July 11 for the next hearing.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Interior had submitted its reply in the case. The federal government explained to the PHC that PTI workers were arrested in October, 2016 for taking the law into their hands and attempting to lock down the federal capital in violation of a court order.

The petitioners claimed that the workers had been marching towards Islamabad from Swabi Interchange in October last, demanding that the federal government should come clean on the Panama Leaks when Punjab police baton charged them and arrested them.

The federal government in its reply said the leadership of the petitioners’ party (PTI) was told to stage their scheduled protest at Shakarparian ground because at that time Section 144 was in place which banned the assembly of five or more than five persons.

The government further said that despite the Islamabad High Court’s orders, the district administration and Islamabad police received reports that a gathering of PTI workers was planning to lock down the city.

It was submitted in the reply that the police had advised PTI workers to disperse but they refused to obey the orders and started resisting which resulted in arrests. It went on to add that arrests were made after workers armed with sticks had taken the law into their own hands and had clashed with police.

About the cases, it stated, besides four cases were registered under arms ordinance where two Kalashnikovs, one teargas gun, its shells, 15 rounds of 9MM pistols, two bullet proof jackets, 289 rounds and a bottle of liquor was recovered from a vehicle of K-P assembly member Ali Amin Gandapur. The federal government submitted in the reply that around 19 criminal cases were registered against 323 violators from the jurisdictions of different police stations. Those charged were facing trials.

The government also mentioned PTI workers’ clashes with Islamabad Capital Territory police during a sit-in with Pakistan Awami Tehreek at D-Chowk, attack on Parliament and Pakistan Television, ransacking during the PTI’s 2014 long march where the government registered around 90 criminal cases. The federal government requested the PHC to dismiss the petition because it did not fall under its jurisdiction.