Minister Sanaullah said 499 First Information Reports (FIRs) were filed in relation to the May 9 violence, but only six cases would be prosecuted in military tribunals.
Approximately 499 First Information Reports (FIRs) were filed in response to the violence on May 9, but just six cases are now being handled for trial in military tribunals, said to Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Friday in ISLAMABAD.
The interior minister explained during a press conference in Islamabad, saying that four of the six cases were filed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and two were filed in Punjab.
He went on to say that of the 499 instances, 88 included anti-terrorism laws.
Nineteen of the detainees arrested in connection with the May 9 incident, as reported by Sanaullah to the media, have been turned over to military authorities in Punjab.
He went on to say that the military authorities in K-P were now in possession of 14 individuals.
“I was silent until today because I wanted to speak when the facts emerged completely, and I wanted to present them with full responsibility,” the minister said to the media.
After PTI chairman and ousted prime minister Imran Khan was arrested from the Islamabad High Court by hundreds of Rangers men on May 9 in connection with a corruption case, riots erupted across the country.
According to Sanaullah, 3,946 persons have been detained for violating the ATA.
He also said that 1,100 persons in K-P and 2,588 in Punjab were detained.
The minister went on to say that a total of 5,536 persons had been detained in unrelated incidents.
However, Sanaullah reported that most of the defendants had been released on bond and that the remaining cases had been moved to other courts.
He gave his word that anybody who weren’t directly participating in the May 9 riots wouldn’t be prosecuted.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Sanaullah remembered, has stressed that no innocent people will face any prosecutions.
When a person, even a soldier, trespasses without authorization on a structure or a component of it that is relevant to the country’s defense, the security czar stressed that the Official Secrets Act and the Army Act apply.
“It is a crime to enter, remain in, or knowingly permit entry to such a structure. He elaborated, saying, “Protests and videos can’t be made near sensitive buildings.”
The minister made reference to proposals for legislation and stated that neither new legislation nor changes to existing legislation were necessary in regards to cases heard in military tribunals.
In answer to a follow-up question, he also expressed support for bringing the PTI leader before a military tribunal.
According to his own evaluation and the available information, “this man [Imran] is the architect of all this mess and planning, so yes he comes under this category,” he stated.
Human rights organizations have voiced worry regarding military trials of civilians, citing worries that these tribunals cannot be guaranteed to be fair. These courts do not allow visitors or reporters.
The minister stated that the accused will be able to appeal the military court’s decision to a higher court and subsequently to the Supreme Court.
According to Sanaullah, the rise of hateful politics began with the PTI’s naming of their politics “jihad” (holy war) during the 2014 sit-in.
In addition, “what happened on May 9 was also a continuation of that,” he said.
In the words of the minister, Imran has always been a “fitna” (troublemaker).
Former US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad’s remarks about the events of May 9 were also criticized by Sanaullah.
He said that Khalilzad had not mentioned the prisoner who had been given a four-year term for breaking into Capitol Hill in the United States in any of his tweets.
The former American official, he said, “only observed human rights in Pakistan.”
The ministry of the interior said that Khalilzad was receiving funding to influence the United States.
Sanaullah said that the attack on Jinnah House in Lahore, which was not only the residence of military personnel but also a camp office of the corps commander and stored extremely sensitive material, could not be construed as a political protest and was instead a matter of national defense.
Since the thieves made off with valuable products like computers that might hold sensitive data and there were risks that this information could slip into the hands of the country’s adversaries, the minister stated the case fell under the purview of the Army Act, which was implemented in 1952.
He also dismissed the idea that any prominent PTI members will resign as a result of internal party turmoil.
He questioned why, if the PTI leaders were under pressure to resign, they were giving the people the whole story of what happened on May 9.
If PTI leaders are leaving the party because of the heat in prison, what should the rest of us do? It’s not our fault if they can’t handle the conditions, because we’ve been there too. I was not even permitted to go to the hospital while I was locked up. Our struggles were greater than theirs,” he said.
He insisted that the PTI officials had resigned freely because they had never backed Imran’s “toxic politics,” which he said were always intended to sow disorder and instability in the country.
The assemblies will serve out their full terms, as promised by Sanaullah.
He also promised that elections for all of the assemblies would be held on time and that a caretaker set up would be constituted.
