The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday issued notices to the deputy commissioner and police on a petition challenging the detention of PTI Senior Vice President Sher Afzal Marwat under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO).

Marwat was arres­ted from outside the LHC on Thursday, where he had arrived to join a protest. Footage of his arrest shared by the PTI on X (formerly Twitter) had shown policemen dragging him by the collar as several lawyers tried to stop them. He was later moved to an undisclosed location.

Police sources had told Dawn that the arrest was made under the MPO. The law emp­owers the police to detain a person considered “prejudicial to public safety or the maintenance of public order”.

The arrest was strongly criticised by PTI leaders and lawyers’ bodies. A statement shared on the party’s official X account held the caretaker government responsible for “acting as a facilitator” during the “unabated lawlessness”.

Today, Marwat’s brother filed a petition in the LHC seeking the quashing of the PTI leader’s detention orders. He urged the court to declare the arrest “illegal, maliciously motivated, ab initio void and non-est”.

The plea, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, named Lahore deputy commissioner, superintendent central jail, Lahore inspector general of police, Lahore capital city police officer, DIG operations, DIG investigations, Civil Lines SP, district intelligence and the station house officer of the Mozang police station as respondents in the case.

The application stated that the government had detained Marwat as a “political vendetta”. It also demanded that Marwat be released till the disposal of the petition.

The petition was taken up by LHC’s Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhary in the chamber. He issued notices to and sought responses from the deputy commissioner and other respondents in the case.

The hearing was subsequently adjourned.

Lahore Bar Association bans entry of police in courts

Speaking to media outside the court later, Marwat’s lawyer Latif Khosa claimed his client was detained based on “assumptions”, recalling that gates of the LHC were closed ahead of the PTI leader’s arrest yesterday.

“We went to the Mozang police station later but were told Marwat was not brought there,” he said, adding that even the CCPO office was empty.

“It is madness to think that Sher Afzal Marwat would disrupt peace in Punjab,” Khosa asserted. “This is a mockery of lawyers in Pakistan.”

Meanwhile, Advocate Rana Intizar, who is also the president of the Lahore Bar Association, said lawyers had decided to restrict the entry of police inside courts until Marwat was released.

It must be noted that Marwat, one of the counsels for former prime minister Imran Khan, was catapulted into the spotli­g­­ht over the past few weeks due to his fiery addresses at the PTI’s public events.

The lawyer, who was recently made a senior vice president of the party, has been at the forefront at a time when the majority of the party’s core leadership is in hiding or has parted ways.

Last week, Marwat had accused the police of attempting to “abduct” him near the Gulabad area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lower Dir district.

Subsequently, the Peshawar High Court had ordered the KP government not to arrest Marwat until further orders in four cases recently registered against him after he attended his party’s conventions in the province.

In October, a case was registered against Marwat in Dera Ismail Khan, on allegations of instigating the public against state institutions through social media. The case revolved around a video Marwat posted to his YouTube channel, where he purportedly tried to incite the public against state institutions to create chaos.