PTI Chairman Imran Khan submits surety bonds for pre-arrest bail in four cases

LAHORE, May 30 (SABAH): The Lahore High Court (LHC) and an anti-terrorism court (ATC) accepted surety bonds submitted Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan on Tuesday for pre-arrest bail in four cases registered against him.

Imran Khan first appeared before the ATC, where he has three cases registered against him pertaining to arson, ransacking of Jinnah House and creating a law and order situation.

Security at the court premises was stringent and the former premier refused to speak to the media during his visit to the court.

After the ATC, Imran Khan reached the LHC’s additional registrar’s office to submit a surety bond for pre-arrest bail in a case pertaining to the distortion and withholding of evidence in the case of the alleged murder of a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) worker, Zille Shah.

The LHC had granted Imran Khan pre-arrest bail earlier with the instruction to submit surety bonds.

The ATC had also granted Imran pre-arrest bail earlier on May 19 in the three cases registered against him at the Sarwar Road Police Station, Gulberg Police Station and Shadman Town Police Station. The court had directed him to submit surety bonds worth Rs100,000 for each of the three cases while granting pre-arrest bail till June 2.

The court had, however, refused to accept surety bonds submitted on behalf of the premier by a guarantor, who claimed to be a sweeper at Imran’s residence.

The guarantor, Shehroze, had appeared before ATC Judge Ijaz Ahmad Buttar to submit the amount but was unable to assure the court of accepting responsibility in case the deposed premier failed to appear before the court. Subsequently, the judge refused to accept the surety bonds submitted by the guarantor and directed Imran to appear himself.

Meanwhile an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore on Tuesday declared a police search warrant for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s Zaman Park residence “ineffective”.

ATC Judge Abhar Gul Khan, while announcing the reserved verdict on the PTI chief’s plea, said one-time search warrants are not for forever.

The PTI chief had moved the court three days back against the search warrants, naming the state, commissioner of Lahore, DIG operations Lahore, SSP operations Lahore, and others as respondents.

In the plea, the PTI chief claimed that law enforcement personnel secured the warrants with “malicious intent”.

“It is most respectfully prayed that the search warrant relating to petitioner’s house situated at Zaman Park, Lahore may kindly be set-aside /cancelled/recalled being illegal, unlawful, inappropriate which lacks the requisite legal parameters for a valid warrant in the interest of justice and fair play,” he said in the plea.

Urging the court to take strict action against the respondents, IMran Khan asked the court to deal with them severely for “their unlawful and illegal misuse of authority under the pretext of the search warrant”.

The authorities had secured the search warrants claiming that they wanted to arrest the “terrorists” present inside the PTI chief’s residence. However, when they arrived there on May 19, Khan refused to allow a search operation at his residence.

At the outset of the hearing, the judge asked the commissioner what was the reason behind the law enforcers’ action at Zaman Park. The commissioner said his men went here to remove encroachments.

But, he noted, they had not followed up on the search warrants so far.

The judge asked the investigating officer whether he still needed the search warrants. At this, he said that he would respond to the court’s question after consulting his colleagues. The court, after hearing arguments, had reserved the verdict.