CHAKWAL: Six local leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), who were booked in May 9 incident, managed to obtain interim bails, party sources said on Wednesday.

Those awarded interim bails include Chaudhry Ali Nasir Bhatti, the district president and candidate for PP-20, Malik Akhtar Shahbaz, candidate for PP 21; Fauzia Behram, former MNA and current candidate for PP-22, Shaista Ikram, vice president; Malik Waseem Karamat, senior vice president and retired Col Sultan Surkhru, a PTI leader in Talagang.

On the other hand, another party activist, who was rearrested on the charge of cow theft shortly after getting released from Jhelum Prison, was discharged from the offence of cow theft.

Mohammd Naseeruddin Babar alias Babar Gujjar, the joint secretary of PTI’s Youth Wing Chakwal, was presented before magistrate Yasir Bilal by the police. The situation turned ironic when police presented a supplementary statement on behalf of the complainant alleging that Babar Gujjar stole the cow of the complainant.

However when the judge inquired about the authenticity of the statement from the complainant, the latter told the court that neither he gave that statement nor the signature on the statement belonged to him.

At this the counsel for the complainant, Advocate Chaudhry Tallat Mehmood, presented the Computerised National Identity Card of the complainant before the court, telling the judge that his client used to do his signature in English while the statement presented before the court by the police contained the signature of the complainant in Urdu.

The court after a perusal of the signature on the CNIC and those of the statement discharged Babar Gujjar from the case and asked the district police officer to initiate legal action against the investigating officer for concocting a false statement on the behalf of the complainant.

Talking to Dawn, Babar Gujjar said police officials were hapless and would not blame them.

“I belong to a respectful and well-settled family and I am also an owner of a leading private school. It’s ridiculous that they arrested me in a cow theft,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2023