Islamabad (Web Desk): An Islamabad court on Tuesday rejected post-arrest bail plea of Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rashid Ahmed in a case registered against him for levelling allegations against former president Asif Ali Zardari.
According to details, Judicial Magistrate Umer Shabbir announced the reserved verdict.
At the outset of the hearing, the court asked Rashid’s lawyer whether their stance was that their client was not part of the conspiracy claimed to kill Imran Khan.
Sheikh Rashid's counsel Sardar Abdul Razzik told the court that his client had referred to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairperson's statement and was not part of the conspiracy.
The lawyer added that on February 6, the high court summoned the police, but the police had registered a case. "Instead of investigating Zardari, a case has been registered against Sheikh Rashid," he said.
Sardar Abdul Razzik added that a plan is being made to kill Imran and meanwhile, a case is being registered for the defamation of Zardari.
"No authorized officer has registered a case. A case was registered against Sheikh Rashid on a private complaint. In the provisions laid down, a case cannot be registered at the request of a private complainant," Sheikh Rashid's lawyer argued.
The lawyer said that Asif Zardari had not made the complaint himself, but it was made by a citizen whom nobody knows.
He informed the court that a notice has been given on the application to quash the FIR.
The lawyer requested the court to release Sheikh Rashid on bail as this was a political case.
Later, the plaintiff's lawyer argued that Imran also made the allegation against Zardari and questioned why was he not included in the case.
Meanwhile, the complainant’s lawyer Salman Munir said that if Rashid’s statements past statement were examined, they were based on inciting two groups against each other.
He argued that the AML chief would resort to doing the same if he was granted bail. “How can a person who has not stopped making [such] statements during his detention stop when he is released?”
After hearing the arguments, the judge reserved the verdict which he later announced.
After the announcement of verdict by the court former minister's nephew Sheikh Rashid Shafiq, while, talking to media, said that they would challenge the judgment in a sessions court.
On February 4, a local court in the federal capital sent the AML chief on 14-day judicial remand in a case for allegedly making defamatory remarks against the PPP leadership.
Islamabad police had arrested Sheikh Rashid Ahmed in the early hours of Thursday on a police complaint filed by Raja Inayatur Rehman, the vice president of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Rawalpindi Division, wherein he said that the AML chief, in an interview with ARY’s Waseem Badami on Jan 27, alleged that Zardari recruited terrorists to plan Imran’s murder. His remarks can be heard from the 38-second mark.
Three sections — 120B (criminal conspiracy), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) — had been added to the FIR.
Imran Khan in a television address on Jan 27 had alleged that Zardari was behind a fresh assassination plot — a “plan C” — and a terror group had been engaged for the purpose. He offered no evidence to back up his accusation.