The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has taken Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s lawyer Naeem Haider Panjotha in its custody, sources said on Tuesday. Officials, who spoke anonymously, claimed that the lawyer had gone to the FIA headquarters as he was summoned for an investigation of the social media posts of Judge Humayun Dilawar. PTI lawyer Sher Afzal Khan Marwat tweeted that Panjotha’s clerk had confirmed the arrest but it was not clear whether it was a formal arrest or not as the first information report cannot be “registered directly and without permission of Islamabad High Court”. “Naeem Haider Panjotha Adv has reportedly been arrested by FIA. He went to FIA headquarters to join inquiry in Humayun Dilawar’s Facebook posts,” the PTI leader tweeted. Marwat said that Panjotha’s arrest “would unite the legal fraternity” and would not stop the PTI chairman’s legal team from discharging their “professional obligations”. On the direction of the IHC, the Cybercrime Circle of FIA had launched an inquiry against Panjotha and had directed him to appear before the inquiry team at the Cybercrime Reporting Centre in Islamabad today. In the summon, the inquiry officer had asked the lawyer to clear his position in the interest of justice for a fair trial.
