QUETTA / PESHAWAR: As Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Senator Azam Swati was booked in another case on Friday for posting controversial tweets, party chief Imran Khan defended the former’s outbursts against the army, saying anybody who faced the kind of torture the lawmaker was meted out would have used such language in anger.

Reacting to the objectionable video featuring Mr Swati, Imran Khan said he would have gone to any extent in revenge.

Chairing a meeting of PTI’s parliamentary party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in Peshawar via video link from Lahore, the former prime minister said that criticism was permitted in democracies across the world but the 75-year-old [Swati] was tortured naked on the directions of ‘Dirty Harry’.

Another case registered against PTI senator at Qilla Abdullah

“Who will not react [to it]. I would have gone to any extant to take revenge — would have [even] considered carrying out a suicide attack had someone done this to me,” Mr Khan said.

He asked the PTI legislators to hold a protest demonstration against Mr Swati’s arrest.

The fresh FIR against Azam Swati was registered at the Qilla Abdullah police station on the complaint of a citizen against the abusive language used by the PTI senator in his tweets as well as speech he delivered at a rally in Rawalpindi last month.

Mr Swati, who was brought to Quetta from Islamabad on Friday, is scheduled to be produced before a magistrate on Sunday (today) in one of such cases registered at Quetta and Kuchlak police stations.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2022