IN a dramatic turn of events, Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested on Tuesday on charges of corruption, sparking countrywide violent protests by the party workers and sympathizers. Khan was arrested by Pakistan Rangers on the premises of Islamabad High Court (IHC) (where he had gone in connection with another case) in the Al Qadir Trust case. Chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Lt-Gen (Retd) Nazir Ahmad Butt issued Imran’s arrest warrant on 01 May and he was arrested under sections 9-A, 34-A, 18-A and 24-A of the NAB Ordinance 1999.
Imran Khan is, no doubt, a popular leader and one can understand the sentiments of his party workers and supporters but there was absolutely no justification for the violence that erupted in several cities and towns after the arrest. This was mainly because the arrest was portrayed by a number of PTI leaders as ‘illegal’, ‘abduction’, ‘attack on judiciary’ and allegations of ‘torture’ during the arrest. Terming the development as ‘unacceptable’, leaders like Vice Chairman of the party Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, Hammad Azhar, Fawad Chaudhry, Faisal Javed, Farrukh Habib, Ali Zaidi, Dr Yasmin Rashid and others gave calls to workers for protests and there were free for all scenes at many places resulting in the death of two innocent people, injuries to both protestors and personnel of law enforcing agencies and large-scale damage to public and private property. There is no bar on peaceful protests and PTI is entitled to air its grievances but distortion of facts and exaggerated accounts of events should be avoided in all circumstances as these favour none. Those who instigated workers to attack and vandalize Army buildings in Rawalpindi and Lahore did no service to the cause of the party as it was for the first time in the history of the country that such condemnable attacks took place. Previously, some statements of the party leadership were seen as attempts to create a wedge between the defence forces and people of Pakistan. Politicians of all sorts have routinely been arrested in the past on false and real charges but no one resorted to violence and sought legal recourse which was also available to PTI. The arrest sparked instant notice by the Chief Justice of the Islamabad High Court, who was so enraged that he asked senior officials of the government to appear within fifteen minutes and explain the background of the development. He was not willing to give an extension of mere fifteen minutes in the deadline for appearance before the court and even threatened to take action against the Prime Minister (who was out of the country on the fateful day) and other cabinet members concerned before knowing the full facts of the case and the circumstances that led to the arrest. However, the notice taken by the Chief Justice of IHC conveyed a clear message that the PTI has a strong forum to agitate its concerns and grievances and that instead of taking the law into one’s own hands, one should knock at the doors of justice. It is also interesting to note that the court also found nothing wrong in the arrest and deemed it perfectly legal, though notices of contempt of court have been issued to some senior bureaucrats. PTI claims its leader was wrongly arrested but the proper forum to agitate any wrong-doing was the courts and not streets as the party opts to do on every sensitive occasion. Contrary to the claims of the party, NAB, in a statement, has clarified the entire situation saying the case relates to the illegal acquisition of land and construction of Al-Qadir University involving unlawful benefits given in the recovery of prime proceeds of 190 million British Pounds through the UK’s National Crime Agency. It emphasized that the arrest was made after fulfilling the lawful procedures of inquiry and investigation and that during the process of inquiry/investigation, several call-up notices were issued to the former prime minister and his wife but none of the call-up notices were responded to by them. This obviously left the NAB with no choice but to issue arrest warrants to take the case of corruption forward. PTI always claims to be the champion of rule of law which means all are equal before the law and that being the case, it should prove innocence before the courts of law instead of using pressure tactics to get relief.
