Soon after all eight judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) received threatening letters laced with a “white powder” on Tuesday, Islamabad police sprung into action and registered a case against those behind this act on terror charges.
The Islamabad police registered the FIR at the capital’s Counter Terrorism Department police station on the complaint of duty clerk Qadeer Ahmed. The case has been registered under Section 507 (criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 (punishment for acts of terrorism) of the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Ahmed said in the FIR he worked at the IHC and eight letters were received a day ago for each of the court judges, including Chief Justice Aamer Farooq. He said the letters were dispatched today and received by the personal secretaries of the judges.
He said the sender was stated as a woman named Resham but there was no address mentioned. Qadeer said that shortly after the receipt of these letters, he was alerted that there was a “chemical powder” found in one of the letters. He said the judges’ staff were subsequently instructed not to open the remaining letters.
He said the sender had tried to influence the judges by spreading “fear and harassment” and the police were alerted about the matter. Police reached IHC around 2pm and seized the letters, four of which had been opened by that time and the remaining four were sealed. He said that a “white powder” was found in the unsealed envelopes.
He said that a police team did an initial analysis of the powder. The complainant said the content of the letters that had been opened referred to an outfit, Tehreek Namoos-i-Pakistan. The letters criticised the judicial system and used the word “Bacilus Anthracis” to issue a threat.
IHC Chief Justice Farooq had referred to the incident earlier today while hearing PTI founder Imran Khan’s appeal against his conviction in the cipher case. During the hearing, he had said the issue was one of the reasons for a delay in the proceedings. “Basically the high court has been threatened,” the IHC chief justice said.
