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Capt Safdar released on bail hours after arrest in Karachi

By Newsdesk
October 20, 2020

KARACHI: More than eleven hours after his arrest for “violating the sanctity” of Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum, Captain (retd) Safdar, the husband of PML-N leader Maryam Nawaz, was released on bail in the afternoon on Monday.

Safdar, along with Maryam and 200 others, was booked as he raised “political slogans” inside the mausoleum complex a day earlier ahead of the second power show of the 11-party anti-government alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), in the metropolis.

Safdar had been taken into custody on Monday morning from the hotel where he was staying and presented before a judicial magistrate in the afternoon. The magistrate granted him bail and ordered submission of surety bonds worth Rs100,000. Maryam alleged police broke the door of the hotel room they were staying in to arrest her husband. “Police broke my room door at the hotel I was staying at in Karachi and arrested Capt Safdar,” she tweeted. She also re-tweeted a video claiming police had “forcefully” entered her hotel room to arrest her husband.

Police had filed a case on the complaint of a citizen and named Capt Safdar, Maryam and 200 other unidentified people in the first information report (FIR). However, the Pakistan Peoples Party, which has the government in the province and is also the part of the PDM, distanced itself from the arrest. Talking to Maryam Nawaz over telephone, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari condemned the arrest, and expressed complete solidarity with her. While slamming the manner in which the Sindh Police acted against the PML-N leader, senior PPP leader and provincial minister Saeed Ghani said the arrest had not been made on the direction of the provincial government. “What Capt Safdar did at the Mazar was not appropriate,” Ghani conceded, but, he added, the arrest “was an attempt to create differences among the PDM parties, which will be foiled”.

Reacting to the development, Prime Minister’s Adviser on Interior Shahzad Akbar called the arrest a “publicity stunt” by opposition parties. Taking to Twitter, Akbar reminded Maryam that “Sindh police is under [the] complete and direct control” of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto, who is the PML-N’s ally these days.

“Either the arrest of your husband was staged by you n your new ally as publicity stunt or you’re working against each other STILL! Which one is it?”

Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Haider Zaidi commended the Sindh police chief for taking a “quick action” against the “hooligans who disrespected Mazar-e-Quaid”. The federal minister said the law must take its course. Dismissing that the arrest could lead to divisions between the PPP and the PML-N, Maryam Nawaz at a news conference said she did not think for a second the PPP or the Sindh government had instructed police to arrest her husband. “You can be a fool, but we are not kids and we understand everything and what game is being played and what the aim is. I did not think for a second that PPP was behind it [arrest],” said Maryam. She added the PDM was alert and knew such things would happen.

Maryam said there was nothing wrong with the “vote ko izzat do” (give respect to vote) slogan. “Vote ko izzat do is not a slogan which disrespects anyone. I know very well who is afraid of vote ko izzat do and afraid of Madar-e-Millat Zindabad (long live the mother of the nation),” said Maryam. The PML-N leader said her husband had been “getting threats since a long time”. She claimed the complainant in the case was an “absconder” from an anti-terrorism court.

PDM Chairman Maulana Fazlur Rehman, addressing the same news conference, claimed the provincial police chief was forced to register the case against Capt Safdar. “They say that hooliganism was done at the Mazar-e-Quaid. We can show you clips when PTI workers on the same shrine did the same. Did they not see the disrespect then?” asked Fazl.

The PDM chairman said the platform would also share details about the witness under whose name the FIR was registered. “This is an attack on the whole PDM not just on Maryam,” said Fazl.