ISLAMABAD: Police on Saturday booked former prime minister Imran Khan’s aide and ex-chief minister of Punjab, Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, on terror charges for “attacking” law enforcers during an overnight raid at his Lahore residence.
The hours-long raid on Elahi’s house in eastern Lahore city was spearheaded by Punjab’s Anti-Corruption Establishment with the help of police personnel. The former Punjab chief minister’s son, Moonis Elahi, said on Twitter last night that Punjab police had arrived at his family’s home to arrest his father “in a case for which he got bail today.”
Video clips of police officers entering Elahi’s residence with an armored vehicle and entering his house with sticks in hand and wearing riot gear were shared widely on social media.
The first information report (FIR) was registered against Elahi and others upon the complaint of a duty officer who went to carry out the raid on the ex-chief minister’s house.
“When police [along with anti-corruption officials] arrived at the main gate of Elahi’s house to arrest him and inquired from his employees about his presence in the house, they locked the gate from inside,” the officer wrote in the first information report (FIR), a copy of which is available with Arab News.
“A countless number of people present inside the house started threatening the police and anti-corruption team and later started pelting stones at them. They even doused petrol on the team which caught fire,” it added.
The FIR contained various sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997, such as Section 324 (attempted murder), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 109 (abetment), 147 (punishment for rioting) and others.
According to the report, Elahi escaped from the rear entrance of the house during the commotion. The raid ended when law enforcers were unable to locate Elahi within his residence.
Elahi dissolved the provincial legislature of Punjab on ex-PM Imran Khan’s instructions earlier this year to force the government to hold snap polls across the country. He was rewarded for his loyalty when Khan appointed Elahi as president of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.
The PTI has also expressed its concern over the arrest of other party members in the past and accused the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of sanctioning custodial torture against them.
The raid took place at a time when the government and PTI are negotiating to break the political impasse and form a consensus on the date for upcoming elections in Pakistan. The arrest was condemned by Khan. who said he would give a “roadmap” on how to resist the government crackdown against his party.
“Strongly condemn the illegal raid on Pervez Elahi’s home with no respect to the women & family [members] present,” ex-PM Khan said in a Twitter post. “We are seeing the dismantling of democracy in [Pakistan] before our eyes.”
Khan wondered if the state had taken similar action against the Sharifs and Zardaris, now in power, who were tainted by corruption allegations, adding: “Enough is enough. Tomorrow I will give a roadmap to our nation on how to stand up against this destruction of our Constitution & democracy.”
The next round of talks between the government and the PTI to discuss elections in the country is scheduled to be held on Tuesday.
