Daily Times

Former interior minister and Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad said on Thursday that silence was the best policy in the current circumstances.

Talking to the media outside a court here, where he had gone in connection with the hearing of a case against him, he said it was his opinion that one should deal with the situation by remaining calm and tightlipped.

Rasheed said he had accepted his defeat in the February 8 general elections.

Replying to a question about the threatening letters received by the high courts and the Supreme Court (SC) judges, the former interior minister said it was a sensitive matter. “It is better not to talk much about it,” he added.

He further said he had no idea what the present government was doing.

“I am taking rest these days. Because rest is the best,” he concluded.

Court reserves verdict on Sh Rasheed’s acquittal plea

Earlier, the court reserved its verdict on the acquittal pleas filed by former prime minister and ex-PTI chairman Imran Khan, PTI stalwart Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Sheikh Rasheed and others in the cases registered against them at I-9 police station of Islamabad in connection with the PTI’s Haqeeqi Azadi March.

Judicial Magistrate Malik Imran reserved the decision which will be announced at next hearing on June 6.

Sheikh Rasheed appeared in the court and filed a petition for his acquittal.

Co-suspects, former PTI leaders Sadaqat Abbasi and Ali Nawaz Awan also showed up, while Sardar Masroof Advocate, Amina Ali, Rizwan Akhtar Awan and Mirza Asim Advocate, counsels for the PTI leaders, appeared in the court.

Speaking on the occasion, Sardar Masroof Advocate said that he had filed acquittal pleas on behalf of his clients last year in February. “And today I want to give arguments in the case,” he said.

The judge said that the court had received challans of Sadaqat Abbasi, Ali Nawaz Awan and Sheikh Rasheed.

Masroof argued that the FIRs were registered against the PTI leaders for violating section 144, and there was no proof that they indulged in violence during the march. “There is nothing the CCTV cameras’ footage which could show that my clients remained involved in any unlawful activity,” the lawyer said.