Sheikh Rashid is placed under judicial remand by the court.
Court dismisses police request for extension in physical remand.
ISLAMABAD: On Saturday, a local court in Islamabad placed Sheikh Rashid, the leader of the Awami Muslim League (AML), on judicial detention and rejected a police request to extend the former interior minister’s physical arrest.
Regarding the prosecutor’s plea to extend the physical remand of the AML chief, the court had deferred judgement. Judicial Magistrate Omar Shabbir resumed the hearing and instructed the police to take the seasoned politician to the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
The former minister requested the court to give him Rangers’ security at the hearing earlier today, alleging that the “police had shackled his wrists and feet.” Rashid stated it would be better to give him a “death sentence” in contrast to how the cops were treating him.
The investigation officer told the judge that the AML chief had undergone testing. The photogrammetric test has not yet been completed, though.
Sardar Abdul Razzaq, the former interior minister’s attorney, then spoke in court and claimed that his client is exempt from the terms imposed.
He added that Rashid was “tortured at night” and that despite being placed under physical restraint for two days so that an inquiry could be conducted, the police “tortured” the former minister.
The attorney argued against the police’s request for a physical remand extension by pointing out that a two-day remand had already been granted in the same instance for investigation.
A physical remand extension is being sought to “make Rashid a target of political revenge,” Razzaq continued, adding that the case is “manufactured on political basis.”
Then, the attorney begged to have Rashid removed from the case.
Intezar Panjoota, the second attorney representing the former minister, then argued that as the high court case is still pending, an extension of physical detention could not be granted.
Panjoota opposed all three of the demands made in the case against the AML leader, contending that further “physical remand of Sheikh Rashid will be illegal” measures.
Panjoota insisted that the prosecution be questioned regarding the status of the inquiry throughout the two days of physical detention.
The court then withheld its decision on the matter, which it will make soon.
After publicly accusing former president Asif Ali Zardari of masterminding a plot to kill PTI Chairman Imran Khan, the former interior minister was previously taken into custody by the Islamabad police during a late-night search on his private apartment in a housing society.
After his late-night detention on Thursday, an Islamabad court jailed him to two days in police custody.
