An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Thursday granted bail to PTI founder Imran Khan\u2019s nephew Shershah Khan in a case pertaining to the Jinnah House attack during the May 9, 2023 riots.<\/p>\n
The Lahore Police arrested Shershah, son of Imran\u2019s sister Aleema Khan, from outside his home on August 22. He was then sent on a five-day physical remand and later to jail for 14 days on August 28.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s development comes a day after Shershah\u2019s triathlete brother, Shahrez Khan, was also granted bail in a similar case. Shahrez was picked up on August 21 and was handed over to police custody for eight days before his judicial remand and bail.<\/p>\n
In the last hearing on Tuesday, the ATC had again granted the prosecution time till today to present the case record in connection with Shershah\u2019s post-arrest bail plea.<\/p>\n
ATC Judge Manzer Ali Gill presided over the hearing today, where Advocate Rana Mudassar Umer appeared as Shershah\u2019s counsel.<\/p>\n
During the hearing, Umer pointed out that the prosecution had still not produced the case record in the Jinnah House attack case against Shershah.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one knows when the trial will begin. Therefore, the suspect cannot be kept in jail for an unlimited period,\u201d the counsel contended. He asserted that \u201cno evidence\u201d had been produced against his client on the record.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe suspect was not involved in any riots,\u201d Umer stated, arguing that individuals with more serious charges against them had been given bail in other cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone cannot be implicated [in a case] just based on one suspect\u2019s identification of him,\u201d the lawyer contended.<\/p>\n
Pointing out the arrest \u201c28 months\u201d after the May 9 incidents, Umer alleged, \u201cVindictive actions are being taken because of being a part of the PTI founder\u2019s family.<\/p>\n
The lawyer called the purported recovery of a cane from Shershah, as per the prosecution, \u201cplanted\u201d. He argued that the same ATC had previously discharged PTI\u2019s Dr Yasmin Rashid from a case based on a co-suspect\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, Judge Gill accepted the post-arrest bail plea of Shershah against a surety bond of Rs100,000 and ordered his release, if not needed in any other case.<\/p>\n
Umer, on X, said the bail was a \u201cresult of teamwork\u201d of the lawyers.<\/p>\n
Shershah\u2019s lawyer, Barrister Taimur Malik, also confirmed the bail approval on X.<\/p>\n
His cousin, Qasim Zaman Khan, referring to the bails of both brothers, alleged: \u201cThese arrests were nothing but political victimisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amnesty International and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan had expressed their concerns over the arrests of Shahrez and Shershah, with the former terming them a \u201cpolitical witch-hunt\u201d.<\/p>\n
Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry had defended the arrests, saying they could not be chalked off as \u201cfake, fabricated [or] politically motivated\u201d.<\/p>\n
On May 9, 2023, PTI supporters, protesting Imran\u2019s arrest, staged violent protests throughout the country, vandalising military installations and state-owned buildings, while also attacking the Lahore corps commander\u2019s residence.<\/p>\n
Following the riots, the state launched a crackdown on the PTI, with thousands of protesters and top party leadership arrested. Scores of PTI leaders have recently been convicted in cases over the riots and disqualified from their parliamentary roles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Thursday granted bail to PTI founder Imran Khan\u2019s nephew Shershah Khan in a case pertaining to the Jinnah House attack during the May 9, 2023 riots. The Lahore Police arrested Shershah, son of Imran\u2019s sister Aleema Khan, from outside his home on August 22. He was then sent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11768","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\/11768","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=11768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11770,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11768\/revisions\/11770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}