LAHORE, Dec 18: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday disallowed police to submit a fresh challan in the Sabzazar case and required the presence of former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif on Jan 12.
The judge directed lawyer Imtiaz Kaifi, who had sought exemption from appearance for Sharif, to make sure his client appears in court at the next hearing.
The lawyer said Sharif could not appear in the court because he was busy in electioneering, but the judge rejected his plea.
When the Sabzazar police came up with a new challan in the case and tried to submit it to the court, Kaifi said it could not do so under the law. He said since arrest warrants for Sharif were issued on the basis of a challan the police submitted in 2002, fresh evidence could not be submitted to the court through the challan.
Kaifi also opposed Saeeduddin’s counsel, who is plaintiff in the case. Saeeduddin alleged that his son Salahuddin and four others were killed in a police encounter ordered by Sharif, the then chief minister.
In another development, a division bench of the Lahore High Court is scheduled to take up an application by Saeeduddin, seeking cancellation of the bail granted to Sharif by the ATC.
Saeeduddin said the ATC could not have granted Sharif bail because police had found him guilty of ordering a fake encounter in Sabzazar. He said Sharif had announced after his arrival in Pakistan that he would appear in the court, but later he avoided the court until it issued arrest warrants for him.condemned: Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif have condemned the “police brutality” against civil society members in Islamabad and termed it a sign of worsening state repression against citizens peacefully protesting for rule of law.
In a statement here on Tuesday, both the leaders said the entire nation was struggling to bring Pakistan back into the fold of civilised nations where rule of law existed. The manner in which peaceful women protesters were beaten up by the police presented the picture of a Pakistan regressing to the dark ages, they said.
They said the nation had a great chance on Jan 8 to turn the election into a referendum against the perpetrators of repression by voting against those who had become disciples of dictatorship.
Nawaz-Shahbaz said the PML-N would struggle continuously for the rule of law in the electoral arena as well as outside, and the party would not rest till the reinstatement of the pre-Nov 3 judiciary, restoration of the Constitution as it stood on Oct 12, 1999, and the establishment of genuine democracy.
ELECTION CAMPAIGN: PML-N candidate for PP-152 (Lahore) Dr Saeed Elahi, a political debutant who is facing another beginner in politics PML-Q’s Moonis Elahi, launched his election campaign on Tuesday, claiming his party was struggling to rid the country of dictatorship.
A doctor, Saeed Elahi, said voters should choose honest people as their representatives. He was critical of the policies being pursued by the present rulers, and said they were aimed at pleasing the United States. He said people must bear in mind that nomination papers of a number of PML-Q candidates had been rejected because their degrees were fake.