Federal ministers, PTI MPAs pressurised Sindh police to arrest Capt Safdar: report

KARACHI: A ministerial committee probing the arrest of Capt (R) Mohammad Safdar Awan has found that the Sindh Police was pressurized by the federal government and PTI MPAs to take action against the PML-N leader. On October 22, the Sindh government had established the ministerial committee to investigate the arrest of PML-N vice-president Maraym Nawaz’s husband after the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) jalsa in Karachi and the alleged mishandling of the “highest level of police”.

The matter was also probed by the armed forces on the directives of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa. After the inquiry, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) announced removal of some officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Pakistan Rangers Sindh from their current assignments for acting “overzealously”.

The Sindh committee on Thursday presented its report before the provincial cabinet. The findings accuse federal ministers and local lawmakers belonging to PTI of pressurizing the police into registering a case against Awan for raising political slogans in the premises of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s mausoleum.

The report said hooliganism within the mausoleum is a case whose cognizance should be taken up by a magistrate and not police. But the police was forced to act due to pressure by the federal government and the PTI MPAs to lodge a case against Awan over a ‘fake complaint’ filed by person who was not even present at the mausoleum.

The report said matter of Sindh IGP Mushtaq Mahar had already been settled through the action taken by the army chief.

Although the cabinet decided to not make the report public, it would appraise the federal government about the interference of its ministers and PTI legislators in Sindh.