Mufti Azizur Rehman, the former head of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI), has applied to a district and sessions court for post-arrest bail, days after a similar plea was rejected by a judicial magistrate.
He is accused of sexually abusing a pupil at his madrassah, and the victim has allegedly provided video proof. He is presently detained at Lahore’s District Jail.
In his appeal, Mufti Aziz’s lawyer, Safdar Shaheen Pirzada, describes his client as “an innocent, law-abiding citizen” who has been “falsely and maliciously” accused in the case.
He claimed he was the victim of a plot and “madrassah politics,” accusing the complainant of working “hand in glove” with his opponents and claiming that the case was concocted “in connivance with the police.”
The victim was characterized as a “trapper” in the petition, which questioned why he was still living at the hostel after being expelled from the madrassah in 2018.
The petitioner brought up the aforementioned issue in an effort to “show the hollowness of the prosecution case,” as well as referring to the plaintiff as a “puppet in the hands” of his opponents, who he said were trying to remove him from his position as Jamia Manzoor ul Islamia.
Mufti Aziz’s lawyer denied the accusation, claiming that the location of the claimed sexual act is where he “lived with his family, including adult sons, and therefore it is highly unbelievable and unnatural that he would resort to alleged acts at the place where his whole family lives.”
Regarding the video evidence against his client, the counsel argued that such videos “can be created within a couple of minutes”.
The petition cited the example of Titanic and other Hollywood movies in which “things are maneuvered and fabricated fictitiously, illegally which has no gensus (sic) with reality”.
“Therefore, it would not be impossible to create this sort of video,” the petition claimed.
Mufti Aziz’s lawyer said that throughout the inquiry, nothing was found on his client and that “further incarceration in any manner will not be beneficial to the prosecution case.”
He went on to say that his client was also ready to put up a surety to obtain bail, as he pleaded with the court for relief and the award of release until the case’s ultimate judgment.
Following today’s hearing, the court ordered the police to submit the case’s record on September 20.
On the allegation of Sabir Shah, a student at Jamia Manzoorul Islam, Cantonment, North Cantonment police filed an FIR on June 17 charging Mufti Aziz with sexual assault and criminal intimidation.
