KARACHI, Jan 4: Police shifted the detained chief of the Sindh National Front and a former chief minister of Sindh, Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, to the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases in the small hours of Sunday on Sindh High Court orders.

A few hours after his arrest in Mirpur Bhutto town near Larkana on Saturday, Mr Bhutto’s lawyers filed a petition requesting the court to quash an FIR against the senior politician and order proper medical treatment of their ailing client while in police custody.

“We put Justice Gulzar Ahmed’s orders before the police authorities to finally shift Mr Bhutto to the NICVD from Frere police station,” said one of the lawyers, adding that the court would take up the matter on Monday that would further determine the fate of the petition for quashment of the FIR against the leader.

Mumtaz Bhutto, a cousin of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was arrested in his hometown on Saturday, a day after he was booked by the Frere police for an attack on a Sindhi newspaper’s office in Clifton and threatening its staff with dire consequences for carrying reports against the SNF.

The FIR (01/2009) was lodged under sections 147, 148, 149, 506B, 462, 504 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code on a complaint of a senior staffer of the daily, Awami Awaz. Some armed SNF members have been accused of scuffling with staff of the daily last week and later threatening them.

However, the SNF denied the allegations and said the arrest was a part of political victimisation against their party.

The police brought Mr Bhutto to Karachi on a special plane from Sukkur and kept his whereabouts undisclosed until they received the court orders.

“Mr Bhutto is an aged person and being a senior citizen enjoys respect to get proper treatment and medication, as he has gone through a hectic travelling right from Larkana to Karachi without any break,” said the lawyer.

NICVD sources said a couple of relatives and a number of party leaders met the arrested politician at the hospital, which was heavily guarded by the police force.

The Frere police, meanwhile, planned to take the leader to court of a magistrate on Monday. The police said that they would seek his 14-day physical remand for interrogation.

Meanwhile, Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri said people who wanted to put pressure on the media would not be allowed to do that, APP adds.

Addressing a news conference at the information department on Sunday, she said the action had been taken on the complaint of the newspaper staff and in view of the resolution passed by the All Pakistan Newspapers’ Society.

“We don’t have any personal difference with anyone, but the only interest of the government is the enforcement of law,” she said, adding that if the government had remained silent over the attack on newspaper’s office such incidents could have recurred.

She said criticism was a right of the media and the government would ensure freedom of press.