An Islamabad anti-terrorism court (ATC) issued a bailable arrest warrant for National Assembly Opposition Leader Omar Ayub on Thursday in a case related to a protest in October last year.<\/p>\n
PTI protesters and the Islamabad police clashed on Oct 4, 2024, as hundreds of party activists defied security measures and road blockades to gather at multiple locations days before the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. Over 100 PTI supporters, along with ex-premier Imran Khan\u2019s two sisters, were taken into custody.<\/p>\n
ATC Judge Tahir Abbas Sipra presided over today\u2019s hearing of a case filed at the Shahzad Town police station.<\/p>\n
Advocates Sardar Masroof Khan, Zahid Bashir Dar, Murtaza Toori and Mirza Asim were among the lawyers present on the PTI leaders\u2019 behalf.<\/p>\n
During the hearing, Judge Sipra issued a bailable arrest warrant for Ayub and ordered that any previous bail granted to suspects who were absent today be cancelled.<\/p>\n
However, the judge accepted Senator Azam Swati\u2019s plea seeking exemption from attendance, which was filed yesterday, according to Masroof.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, the hearing was adjourned till July 30.<\/p>\n
In a video statement yesterday, Advocate Masroof lamented the \u201cspeed with which these cases are being heard\u201d.<\/p>\n
He noted that some suspects had come from faraway areas such as Azad Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\u2019s Mardan, having no place to stay overnight in Islamabad to attend today\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf these trials will be bulldozed in such a manner and you won\u2019t give them a fair trial, then it will become very difficult for you to fulfil the requirements of justice,\u201d the lawyer said, requesting courts to punish those guilty but not convict those who were not involved.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s development comes within days of two ATCs sentencing PTI bigwigs to as many as 10 years in jail in cases related to the violent May 9, 2023 countrywide riots.<\/p>\n
A Lahore ATC handed down at least eight leaders 10-year rigorous imprisonment, while acquitting six others. A Sargodha ATC also convicted as many as 32 accused, including MNA Ahmad Chattha and Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Ahmed Khan Bhachar.<\/p>\n
In May, the Islamabad police\u2019s prosecution nominated the PTI\u2019s top leadership \u2014 including Ayub, Chairman Gohar Khan, KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur and Barris\u00adter Muhammad Ali Saif \u2014 in another case over the October 4 protests filed at the Koral police station.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, a Lahore ATC also declared PTI\u2019s Hammad Azhar and Rana Shahbaz Ahmed as proclaimed offenders in two cases related to an alleged attack on Punjab police during a simultaneous protest as party workers reached Minar-i-Pakistan despite the government\u2019s security measures.<\/p>\n
Other cases over the clashes had also been registered at the Noon and Ramna police stations in the federal capital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An Islamabad anti-terrorism court (ATC) issued a bailable arrest warrant for National Assembly Opposition Leader Omar Ayub on Thursday in a case related to a protest in October last year. PTI protesters and the Islamabad police clashed on Oct 4, 2024, as hundreds of party activists defied security measures and road blockades to gather at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10992,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10990\/revisions\/10992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}