Court orders repeal of PECA sections in Imran Riaz case

Orders journalist be produced in Attock court

A Rawalpindi court on Wednesday ordered journalist Imran Riaz Khan to be produced in a local court in Attock and instructed that charges framed against him under sections of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) 2016 be repealed.

Imran was arrested by the Attock police on Tuesday night on the outskirts of Islamabad as he was headed to the federal capital to acquire pre-arrest bail from the IHC in a treason case registered against him. Sources in the police department said that a contingent of the Attock police supported by a team of the Elite Force took the journalist into custody and moved him to the Attock City Police Station. Imran was brought to the Rawalpindi Judicial Complex on Wednesday in the court of Judicial Magistrate Muhammad Pervaiz Khan, who was presiding over a hearing for a petition filed by the journalist against his arrest.

According to the court order, Malik Sikandar, an assistant director (legal) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), informed the judge that the offences mentioned in the first information report against Imran were not “actually made out” and the police had wrongly lodged the FIR regarding the PECA sections. Sikandar further informed the court that no offence had been committed according to the PECA sections and the FIA did not have the privilege to investigate the matter further. The order said that after considering Sikandar’s opinion, the court did not have the jurisdiction to entertain the matter of Imran’s remand and directed the investigating officer to produce the journalist before a relevant court in Attock.

Earlier during the court hearing, the magistrate said the case was merited in his court since he was a judge on cases pertaining to the FIA. Imran’s counsel, Mian Ali Ashfaq, said the journalist’s arms license and bulletproof vehicle license were cancelled. He said the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had granted protective bail to Imran and yet, the journalist was arrested by Attock police at Islamabad Toll Plaza last night. He said the toll plaza was at the border between Islamabad and Rawalpindi. It must be mentioned here that the Lahore High Court had accepted journalist Imran’s plea for protective bail in May after multiple sedition cases were registered against him.

Earlier, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) disposed of on Wednesday the petition regarding the arrest of Imran Riaz Khan in Attock, directing the petitioner’s counsel to approach the Lahore High Court (LHC). The IHC, under Chief Justice Athar Minallah, heard the case of the journalist’s arrest and observed that the matter was beyond the high court’s jurisdiction since the journalist was not arrested from Islamabad. However, the counsel for the journalist argued that the arrest was made from within Islamabad despite the Islamabad police claiming otherwise.