ISLAMABAD: A district and sessions court in Islamabad on Saturday extended for one day the physical remand of Azam Swati, a senator of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party, in a case involving a tweet critical of the powerful army chief.
Swati, a former minister in the cabinet of then-prime minister Imran Khan, has been in detention since early Thursday, a period during which he was stripped and tortured, apparently by the army-controlled agencies, for tweeting about Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa.
In his tweet, he taunted the general after a court acquitted Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his son in a money laundering case on Wednesday, saying Gen. Bajwa had made the acquittal possible.
“Mr Bajwa congratulations to you and few with you. Your plan is really working and all criminals are getting free at cost of this country,” Swati tweeted. “With these thugs getting free, you have legitimized corruption. How [do] you predict now the future of this country.”
The FIA, headed by an aide of Sharif, accused Swati of a “mischievous act of subversion” to create a rift in the military and to “harm the state of Pakistan,” according to the First Information Report (FIR).
Later on Thursday, a court gave the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) two days to question Swati over what it called in charging documents, his “obnoxious and intimidating” message against the general, state institutions and other government officials.
Prior to the proceedings on Saturday, Swati was taken to the Pakistan Institute Of Medical Sciences (PIMS) for a medical examination after which he was presented before the court amid tight security.
— With input from AP
