Daily Times

Senior PTI leader Ali Zaidi was arrested by the Sindh Police on Saturday from the PTI office in Karachi. A case was registered against him at Ibrahim Hyderi police station on charges of “fraud”.

The FIR was registered on the complaint of a property dealer, Fazal Ilahi, against Zaidi and two unidentified persons. According to the first information report (FIR), the case was registered under Sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of a common intention), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 471 (using as genuine a forged document) and 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the FIR, the complainant told police that Zaidi ran a real estate business in 2013 and had taken a loan of Rs180 million from him. The complainant maintained that as surety, Zaidi give him the papers of a property valued at Rs16.7m and promised to pay the remaining Rs12.5m in the next six months. An agreement to this effect was signed at Ilahi’s office in the Jamot Para area of Ibrahim Hyderi, the FIR said.

Ilahi alleged in the FIR that he had asked Zaidi several times to transfer the plot in his name but he continued to employ delaying tactics. He further claimed that later, it was revealed that the file of the property given to him by Zaidi was “fake”. “Despite my frequent requests, the suspect refused to give me the money,” the FIR quoted the comaplainant as saying.

Ilahi alleged that the “suspect’s had ill intentions” and he had “abused his trust and committed fraud”. In his complaint, Ilahi has also sought police protection from Zaidi for himself and his children. The arrest of Zaidi was criticised by PTI leader Zulfi Bukhari, who called the move a futile attempt to revive dying politics of the ruling coalition. Bukhari further added that the government was demonstrating extreme arrogance in what he referred to as the last days of the “shameless imported government.”

Earlier, a video posted on PTI’s official Twitter account showed a man, thought to be Zaidi, being escorted into a white automobile by men in civvies surrounded by uniformed police personnel. In another video from inside the PTI Secretariat, officials can be seen pushing and dragging Zaidi by his arm. The party’s provincial media department claimed Zaidi was arrested from the PTI Secretariat without a warrant.

“The police entered the party office without any warrant,” the party’s Sindh spokesperson said. “Zaidi was holding a meeting with district representatives [at the time].” The spokesperson said the police and men in civvies moved Zaidi to an undisclosed location. “The police personnel also confiscated some mobile phones from the party’s office,” he said, adding that the raid was “illegal”.