QUTEEA – The Balochistan High Court (BHC) on Friday suspended Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s arrest warrant for two weeks issued by a local court in a case of hate speech against state institutions and officers.
The suspension order comes amid the arrival of a Quetta police team in Lahore to arrest the former prime minister.
PTI approached the Balochistan High Court (BHC), seeking the cancellation of Imran’s warrants. It also demanded that the FIR lodged against him be quashed.
BHC’s Justice Zaheer-Ud-Din Kakar conducted the hearing today and suspended the arrest warrants for two weeks after listening to arguments from the petitioner’s lawyer.
The plea maintained that the offence wasn’t committed in the jurisdiction of Bijli Police Station where the case had been registered and requested the court to dismiss the FIR.
Justice Kakar, while suspending the warrant, also issued the summons for the Balochistan police chief, SP legal and the station house officer of the Bijli Police Station.
The hearing was then adjourned for two weeks.
Meanwhile, a five-member team led by Superintendent of Police (SP) Investigations Nadeem had arrived in Lahore to arrest the PTI chief. The team includes Deputy Superintendent of Police Abdul Sattar, a sub-inspector and two other officers.
A day earlier, a local court in Quetta issued a non-bailable arrest warrant for the PTI chief in a case registered against him under multiple sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (PECA).
