ISLAMABAD: District and Sessions Court Islamabad on Friday turned down a plea for extension in physical remand of PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry in a sedition case.
Judicial Magistrate Waqas Ahmed Raja has sent the former information minister to the Adiala Jail on 14-day judicial remand. The judge announced the verdict after hearing arguments from Fawad’s lawyer Babar Awan and counsel for the Election Commission of Pakistan.
The PTI bigwig was produced before the court of the judicial magistrate in handcuffs after his two-day remand ended today in the case filed by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for threatening the officers of the electoral body in a speech.
During the hearing, the prosecutor pleaded the court to extend physical remand of the PTI leader as the investigation needed more time to complete the probe. Reading out the content of the FIR, he said the former minister attempted to incite violence against ECP officials and their families.
He said voice-matching test of the suspect had been completed while there was a need to take him to Lahore for photogrammetric test. He also sought permission to search the house of the Imran Khan’s close aide to recover laptop and mobile phone. He said the role of the electoral body was crucial in coming months due to elections but Fawad Chaudhry was trying to put pressure on ECP.
Fawad Chaudhry’s lawyer Babar Awan expressed reservations over treatment meted out to his client, stating that the PTI leader was treated as a “terrorist”. He said the statement of Fawad Chaudhry was reflection of public opinion against the ECP. He also requested the court to discharge his client’s name from the case.
On Wednesday, Duty Magistrate Naveed Khan handed over the PTI stalwart in the custody of Islamabad police on two-day physical remand after he was arrested from his resident in Lahore in a case filed over hurling threats at officials of the Election Commission of Pakistan and their families. The investigating officer had sought eight-day physical remand of the former minister but the request was rejected.
At the outset of the hearing, PTI’s lawyers requested the court to remove the handcuffs of Fawad Chaudhary, Fawad Chaudhary asked the court to tell the Islamabad police not to do this, there are 1500 policemen outside, and he is handcuffed, adding, “I am a lawyer of the Supreme Court, and I want to talk to my family for five minutes and five minutes to my lawyers.”
“It is unfortunate that we are taking revenge against each other in politics,” he said. Fawad requested that the case against him be dismissed, arguing that if the case continued, free speech would end in the country.
The counsel of the ECP, Saad Hassan, read out the text of the FIR. In his arguments, the lawyer said that the ECP is a constitutional institution, and it has all the rights to hold elections. He said that the commission was being targeted under a well-thought-out plan, and the accused tried to provoke the citizens, while they are role models for the public. The purpose of his speech was to provoke the groups.
Saad Hassan told the court that Fawad targeted the families of the ECP members, adding that the PTI leader was promoting hatred against the institution. He went on to say that the people behind the speech also needed to be identified, adding that there was sufficient evidence in the media against the PTI leader.
The ECP lawyer further added that the charges of sedition are also included in the FIR, adding that the members of the Commission are being threatened, the accused has been remanded, and further investigation is to be done.
Saad Hassan, while presenting his arguments, said that the PTI leader called ECP a clerk, to which the former minister again repeated his words, on which the court asked Fawad Chaudhary to come to one side and let the other parties come to the other side.
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