ISLAMABAD: A day after the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) detained leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) in connection with the prohibited funding case, the former ruling party approached the Islamabad High Court (IHC) with a request to restrain the investigation agency from action against its leadership.

In a similar petition, the PTI requested the court to stop the FIA and the Islamabad police from proceeding against the party leaders and activists in the backdrop of a long march expected to be announced by former prime minister Imran Khan soon.

Both pleas were lodged by Omer Ayub Khan, the PTI additional secretary general, who requested the court to restrain the law enforcement agencies from arresting the PTI leadership.

A day earlier, the FIA had raided the residences of PTI leaders in Lahore and Islamabad to arrest the party members named in the funding case over their alleged non-cooperation.

In separate petition, former ruling party seeks protection from ‘mass arrests’ ahead of long march

The plea contended that after the ouster of its government, the PTI set up a website named “namnzoor.com” to collect donations from overseas Pakistanis. The primary donor can visit the website and provide their details to go to the payment page, where they can use their bank account or PayPal to make the payment. It said that details of these donations are being shared with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in compliance with the Election Act 2017.

The petition said that the incumbent coalition government “is unable to compete with the petitioner [PTI] in political arena…[and] has come up with an illegal scheme to stop public, and particularly overseas Pakistanis in UK, USA, and Europe” from donation to the PTI. It claimed that the government wanted to ‘financially incapacitate’ the party. “By stopping the donations, the intention is to cripple the PTI financially to incapacitate [it] to conduct political activities and exercise its fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution,” it added.

It went on to say that “in order to achieve this illegal purpose, the FIA began an inquiry which is not known to the petitioners but evidently the inquiry was about the working” of the aforementioned website.

“It is obvious that in case of any such inquiry notices were required to be sent to the petitioner party first so that PTI could be given an opportunity to explain its case and answer the queries of the FIA in this regard. However, without sending any such notices or even informing the PTI, a raid was conducted on September 19, 2022, on the house of Senator Saifullah Nyazee”.

The petition further stated that the FIA issued notices and conducted raids on the office of Chaudhry Mohammad Iqbal, whose company provides “technical assistance” for the maintenance of the website. The party also termed the ongoing inquiry into its financial affairs a violation of the elections act.

Harassment of PTI leaders

In the second petition, the PTI requested the court to stop the FIA and Islamabad police from proceeding against PTI leaders and supporters ahead of its potential long march.

It accused the ruling coalition of launching a campaign against Imran Khan and creating hurdles in the upcoming march and expressed apprehensions about mass arrests.

It requested the court to restrain law enforcement agencies and police from disrespecting the privacy of the PTI leadership and activists. In case, the government wanted to proceed against anyone the process must be in compliance with the dictum laid down by the superior courts, it added.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2022