ISLAMABAD, June 12: A team of the Balochistan police has arrived in Islamabad to take custody of former president Pervez Musharraf in the Akbar Bugti murder case.

Balochistan police chief Mushtaq Ahmed Sukhera was not available for comments.

However, his staff officer SP Mohiuddin confirmed that senior officers from the crime branch, including DIG Sardar Abdul Majeed and AIG Noshad Younus, had reached Islamabad on Wednesday. But it is yet to be decided whether Musharraf will be taken into custody and shifted to Quetta, he added.

“The federal and Balochistan governments are discussing the issue and will decide the matter by tomorrow (Thursday).”

He said the Balochistan High Court had ordered the police to arrest the former military ruler and produce him before the court.

Mohammad Ilyas Siddiqui, the counsel for Musharraf, told Dawn that the Balochistan government had requested the high court of the province to transfer the hearing of the Bugti murder case to Islamabad or Punjab due to security threats to the former president.

In reply to a question about the arrival of the police officers from Quetta, he expressed ignorance, but said the Balochistan government was already reluctant to shift Musharraf to the province.

Officers of the capital police said before taking the former president into custody, the Balochistan police would have to produce a court order, including rejection of his bail plea in the Bugti murder case, to the prison police deployed at the farmhouse sub-jail in Chak Shahzad. Later, they will produce Musharraf in the court of a judicial magistrate for seeking his transit remand to take him to Balochistan.

The Balochistan police can also approach the commissioner of Islamabad with a request to keep Musharraf in his farmhouse sub-jail.

They can also shift him to the Balochistan House in Islamabad.