ISLAMABAD: Advocate General Islamabad Jahangir Jadoon on Saturday filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) challenging the verdict of a district and sessions court rejecting the plea to extend PTI leader Shahbaz Gill’s physical remand in a sedition case.
The petition requested the IHC to declare the decision of the district and sessions court null and void while extending the physical remand of the PTI leader Shahbaz Gill. Shahbaz Gill was arrested on August 9 from Banigala Chowk in the federal capital a day after he made controversial remarks against the state institutions on a private Tv channel.
Subsequently, he was booked on charges of sedition and inciting the members of the state institutions against their leadership. A treason case was registered against him at Kohsar Police Station under several sections of Pakistan Penal Code.
The investigating officer (IO), during the hearing on Friday, submitted an application to the court seeking extension in Gill’s physical remand by 12 days. The IO stated that the physical remand was necessary for the arrest of others involved in the offence and the recovery of the mobile phone used by the PTI leader for the commission of the offence.
Gill, however, objected to the IO’s application, claiming that police were ‘using the physical remand only for the purposes of torture’. He contended that no mobile phone was used for his comments on the news channel, as during the live transmission aired on August 8, the mobile phone services were suspended on account of 9th Muharram.
He said talked to the Tv channel via landline phone installed at his Banigala office, thus there was no justification for grant of physical remand. The Judicial Magistrate Umar Shabbir, then rejected the IO’s request for further remand and sent Mr Gill to Adiyala jail on judicial remand.