Staff Reporter
Karachi
Hours after his arrest in Karachi, Captain (Retd) Mohammad Safdar was granted bail on Monday by a judicial magistrate against surety bonds of Rs100,000.
The development was also announced earlier by PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz in a press conference, where she was accompanied by JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman, PPP leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and other political leaders.
“[Safdar] and I will be leaving Karachi together because just now Marriyum Aurangzeb has told me that he has been granted bail,” Maryam said.
Maryam had tweeted early Monday morning that her husband Captain Mohammad Safdar had been arrested by the police from their hotel in Karachi.
“Police broke my room door at the hotel I was staying at in Karachi and arrested Capt Safdar,” Maryam said via tweet. According to Maryam, she was sleeping when the police allegedly “barged in”.
Meanwhile, Safdar had moved the court to secure a post-arrest bail. The state prosecutor, on the other hand, requested the court to reject the bail application.
The atmosphere outside the courtroom was charged as supporters of PML-N and PTI, who had gathered outside for Safdar’s hearing, chanted slogans against each other.
He was arrested a day after he raised slogans at the Quaid’s mausoleum before the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s second power show at Bagh-i-Jinnah.
A first information report was registered against Maryam, Safdar and 200 others for violating the sanctity of the Quaid’s mausoleum. The complainant, Waqas Ahmed, alleged that the PML-N leaders, along with 200 of their followers, reached the Quaid’s grave where Safdar jumped over the grill surrounding it.
The complainant said that he tried to stop him from doing so but Safdar “got out of control” and started threatening him and his fellows that he would kill them. He added that
Safdar later damaged government property before leaving the site with his followers. “My complaint is that Safdar and his cohort violated the sanctity of the Quaid’s mausoleum and his grave. A case [should be] registered against him for raising political slogans inside the mausoleum complex, death threats against me and for damaging government property.”
Meanwhile, Maryam Nawaz, flanked by leaders of other component parties of Pakistan Democratic Movement – including Maulana Fazlur Rehman of JUI-F and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf of the PPP, addressing a news conference said, “Do not try to blackmail me through people around me, my relatives. Come arrest me if you have courage,” as she reacted to the arrest of her husband Capt (retd) Safdar in Karachi.
“Come arrest me, so the world could see your ugly face as they are watching it today,” Maryam told a news conference.
