As the Supreme Court granted bail to five suspects detained in a case pertaining to the May 9 riots, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhail wondered how carrying out rallies was equivalent to terrorism.
Countrywide protests had erupted on May 9 last year after the paramilitary Rangers whisked away former prime minister Imran Khan from the Islamabad High Court in the £190m corruption case.
While the protests were under way, social media was flooded with footage of rioting and vandalism at various spots, including the Lahore Corps Commander’s residence and General Headquarters, the army’s head office in Rawalpindi.
In August last year, the Rawalpindi police added section 21(1) of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) to three first information reports (FIRs) registered in the wake of attacks on military installations.
The next month, they arrested 36 PTI activists and detained them in the Adiala jail under Section 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) despite the Lahore High Court (LHC) granting them bail.
The city police have so far detained as many as 230 suspects in the GHQ attack case, including Imran and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.They have nominated around 150 unknown suspects in the Hamza Camp attack and another 100 in the Museum attack case.
Today, a three-member bench — led by Justice Mandokhail and including Justices Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Musarrat Hilali — took up a bail petition of suspects involved in a case filed by the New Town police for the Hamza Camp attack.
Sardar Abdul Razzaq appeared as the counsel for the petitioners while the investigation officer (IO) and the Punjab government’s lawyer were also present.During the hearing, Justice Mandokhail asked, “How is carrying out rallies [equivalent to] terrorism?”
The bench censured the police and the prosecution for their poor investigation of the case.At the outset of the hearing, Justice Mandokhail asked, “Is carrying out rallies or being a worker of a political party a crime?”
Observing that banning student unions and political parties had resulted in “this destruction”, he asked: “Should we accept a former prime minister as a traitor based on the statement of a head constable?“Have some fear of God. Where are we heading?”.
Here, Justice Rizvi asked what evidence was present against the suspects and whether they had been identified from the CCTV footage.
