PTI to move court against Wazirabad incident FIR

Fawad says legal action to be taken against IG for 'wasting evidence'

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has decided to challenge the first information report (FIR) of the assassination attempt on former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the court. Most of the PTI leaders have termed the FIR ridiculous and frivolous because it didn’t have the names of those mentioned by Imran Khan.

Imran had named Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, and a senior army officer as the main accused behind the attack but the FIR didn’t have any names mentioned by Imran Khan. On Tuesday, the former PM held detailed meetings with his legal and political team at his Zaman Park residence in Lahore in which it was decided that the FIR will be challenged in court.

In his tweet, Imran Khan termed the FIR farcical and said that his legal team will talk about the issue in detail. Senior PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry who spent the whole day at Zaman Park confirmed from his Twitter account that Imran Khan had directed lawyers to approach the court over the issue. He said that important evidence was wasted by Punjab IG and the DPO as they succumbed to “pressure”. “Legal action will also be initiated against them, “he said.

Earlier in the day, Imran met a delegation of journalists and anchors in which he hinted at challenging the FIR in the court. “The statement of the accused, Naveed, is based on lies,” Khan was quoted as saying. He added that he already knew that “they would kill him” and, therefore he had recorded his video message having the names of his killers. “We got strong after winning the by-polls and they were afraid of my popularity and planned to kill me,” said Imran. To a question, the former PM said his confrontation with the establishment started over the issue of accountability. “A prime minister is strong only after getting a two-thirds majority. The government formed with the support of allies gets blackmailed,” Imran said. Sources said that Imran wants the FIR on the basis of an application submitted by Zubair Niazi having the names of all the three bigwigs mentioned by Imran.

Talking to the media at Zaman Park, spokesperson for the Punjab government Musarrat Jamshed Cheema said that the FIR in its current form is no more than a piece of paper. “It is very ridiculous that a former PM and the most popular leader of the country cannot launch an FIR,” she said.

She added that the whole nation had rejected the FIR.

Talking to this scribe, PTI’s Punjab Information Secretary Andleeb Abbas said that the FIR is fake and it is only a piece of paper. “How can police become complainant when the real complainant is here,” she questioned. She urged the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take notice of the issue, adding it is “contempt of court”. “The CJP should play his role in this respect,” she said.

Meanwhile, IG Shahkar submitted on Tuesday a report to the Supreme Court (SC) regarding the FIR registered in the assassination case. The report maintained that an FIR of the attack had been registered in “compliance” with the SC’s order. According to the report, the FIR was registered at Wazirabad City police station, under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. The apex court was also provided a copy of the FIR. Also, a notification has been issued by anti-terror court chief Khurram Khan, stating that a three-member special prosecution team has been formed to investigate the case of the assassination of the former premier. The committee “will give [a] line of inquiry to the investigating officer/ JIT (joint investigation team), provide guidance for collection of properly admissible evidence and conduct the remand of the accused before the anti-terrorism court (ATC)”, the notification stated. It further maintained that the panel will also conduct the prosecution on behalf of the state before the court.

The committee consists of Punjab Deputy Prosecutor General Hafiz Asghar Ali, and Gujranwala ATC Deputy District Public Prosecutors Rana Sultan Salahuddin Khan and Zahid Sarfraz Khan.