- Advocate Mian Ashfaq terms case a fake one, saying complainant was an agent at Maryam Nawaz’s polling station
LAHORE: The court of a local magistrate on Wednesday remanded anchorperson Imran Riaz into police custody for one day in a fraud case following his arrest late Tuesday night.
Imran Riaz was arrested from Allama Iqbal International Airport in the wee hours of Wednesday while heading to board a flight for departing for Saudi Arabia for Haj. The visuals of the arrest, which showed the journalist clad in an ihram, went viral on social media.
On Wednesday afternoon, the anchorperson was produced in a Model Town lower court of Judicial Magistrate Kamran Zafar on Wednesday afternoon by the Nishtar Town police. This is his fifth arrest in a year.
According to the first information report (FIR) invoking Section 406 (Punishment for criminal breach of trust) of the Pakistan Penal Code, Riaz has been accused of abuse of trust.
During the hearing today, the police sought seven-day physical remand of Riaz. The prosecutor stated that the anchorperson had borrowed Rs0.25 billion from the complainant but he never returned the money.
Meanwhile, Riaz’s lawyer, Mian Ashfaq, alleged that the case against his client was fake. “The complainant was an agent at Maryam Nawaz’s polling station,” he contended.
After hearing the arguments from both sides, the judge reserved the verdict. Later, he granted police one-day physical remand of Riaz.
“We are told he [Imran Riaz] is arrested in a case registered against him in Lahore Model Town,” Riaz’s lawyer Azhar Siddique told Arab News.
“We aren’t aware of the charge against Imran Riaz and why there was an urgency by police to arrest him while he was leaving for Hajj.”
The lawyer said a habeas corpus petition to judge the legality of Riaz’s arrest had been moved in the Lahore High Court and would be heard today.
“He was arrested by unidentified people who were accompanied by policemen,” Advocate Azhar Siddique told media adding that a scuffle also took place at the airport.
“Imran Riaz has been granted bail in all the cases registered again him,” the anchorperson’s lawyer added.
Subsequently, Siddique filed a petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC) seeking details of the first information report (FIR) under which Riaz was arrested. It is yet to be fixed before a bench for hearing.
Riaz was to depart for Saudi Arabia for Haj from Islamabad when “many civil-dresses officers from various authorities came and arrested him without providing any details” and “took him to an undisclosed location”, says a complaint lodge with the police.
“No information has surfaced as to which FIR was used in order to apprehend the Applicant on the eve of 11.06.2024, therefore, it is the need of the day that the respondents be summoned by this court and they inform this court as to which FIRs have now been registered, of course, frivolously, against the applicant due to which he was illegally and arbitrarily arrested,” it said.
It added that Riaz’s name was removed from the Exit Control List on June 11.
The plea prayed that the petition be accepted and the police, Federal Investigation Agency, Secretary Interior and the Anti-Corruption Establishment be directed to place on record details of the FIR under which the anchorperson was arrested.
