Former prime minister and PTI Chairman Imran Khan is set to appear before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Friday seeking protective bail in a mutiny case registered against him at the capital’s Ramna police station.
The PTI chief filed a plea through his counsels seeking pre-arrest bail in the case today. However, the registrar’s office marked a few objections to the plea, one of which was regarding the lack of biometric verification.
The Lahore High Court had on April 14 granted the ex-PM protective bail in the case until April 26.
On April 6, Manzoor Ahmed Khan, a magistrate, filed a first information report (FIR) at the city’s Ramna police station against Imran for “spreading hatred between the institutions and the public” and for “trying to cause unforgivable damage to the institutions and their top officers”.
On April 10, the former premier approached the Islamabad High Court, requesting that the mutiny case against him be quashed. Imran’s counsel for that hearing, Faisal Chaudhry, had raised an objection on the jurisdiction that the incident had occurred in Lahore but an FIR was filed in Islamabad.
In a tweet today, the PTI said that Imran has reached the capital with his convoy in connection to the petition his party has filed on his behalf.
The petition, filed by the PTI chief’s legal team, contended that the incumbent government had lodged the case against Imran for political reasons and to tarnish his reputation.
According to the petition, the government has failed to find an iota of corruption against Imran and therefore, it is now dragging him into frivolous cases to blackmail him.
The petition urged the court to quash the FIR.
The FIR
The FIR, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, was registered under sections 138 (abetment of act of insubordination by soldier, sailor or airman), 500 (punishment for defamation) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
According to the FIR, in a speech from Zaman Park Lahore on March 19 that was aired on BOL News, Imran made several allegations against a senior officer of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and allegedly conducted a “character assassination”.
The FIR mentioned the PTI chief’s speeches on November 4 and 11, 2022 and October 28 and 29, 2022, in which he allegedly used inappropriate words for the ISI and army officials. It said Imran had used offensive language and had threatened the families of senior officers.
It also alleged he provoked extremists and put the lives of the family members of a senior officer under constant threat, it added.
The complainant further alleged the former prime minister damaged the army’s reputation through his statements, as a result of which foreign agencies took advantage of the situation and attacked Imran and tried to create a rift between the public and the army.
He claimed that the purpose of Imran’s speeches was to “make the soldiers revolt against their oath and the officers through a conspiracy”, for which it also uses Twitter and other social media platforms.
The FIR further said that through these speeches, the former premier “tried to create such an atmosphere among the top army officers and other soldiers that they do not listen to their officer’s commands”.
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