Daily Times

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan and secretary general Asad Umar moved the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday to quash all first information reports (FIRs) filed against them for abusing state machinery.

The petitioners also sought directions to the concerned quarters to provide a comprehensive report detailing the FIRs, the criminal proceedings initiated against them, and give prior notice before beginning proceedings. They requested that the high court restrain the concerned authorities from taking coercive action against them and declare the arrest, detention and disappearance of PTI workers as contrary to the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution. The PTI leaders demanded that the LHC prevent the respondents from initiating proceedings regarding the various FIRs filed in Punjab. The petitioners’ counsel Salman Safdar implored that more than 100 FIRs had been registered against the former premier, PTI leaders and workers. He added that thousands of the workers had been picked up and illegally detained. The counsel continued that elections were to be held for the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assemblies as per the constitutional mandate, and the tenure of the National Assembly was coming to an end which meant that elections would be held at the national level as well.

“The people repeatedly have and conclusively provided their verdict, through public gatherings large and small and results of by-elections where the PTI fielded its candidates. The PTI consistently won the elections since the last year,” he maintained. According to Safdar, following the PTI’s success, the incumbent government launched the most audacious national assault on the fundamental freedoms and constitutional values the country had observed in its recent history. He contended that all the investigative and state machinery was deployed to target the petitioners, political leaders and workers of his party. He furthered that institutions such as the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), police and others were employed for the sole purpose of targeting Imran Khan and his supporters. “It is clear that all of this is being done in retribution against the petitioner for accountability process during his tenure of the government, to eliminate the petitioner from the political arena and deprive them of the right to contest elections and, if necessary for this purpose, to delay and prevent elections until the petitioners are politically eliminated to prevent the people of Pakistan from exercising their right to bestow an elected and legitimate mandate to the petitioners,” the petition stated.