ISLAMABAD: An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan’s federal capital on Tuesday extended former prime minister Imran Khan’s interim bail until June 8, confirmed a senior member of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, a day after the PTI chief said there were “eighty percent chances” he would be arrested again during his visit to Islamabad.
Ever since his ouster from office via a parliamentary vote in April 2022, Khan has been booked in various cases whose charges range from terrorism to sedition and corruption. His detention on May 9 on graft allegations in Islamabad triggered violent countrywide protests, with angry mobs attacking military installations and burning government buildings that drew the government and army’s ire.
Following the attacks and amid an escalation in Khan’s tensions with Pakistan’s military establishment, several of the PTI leader’s aides and supporters have been arrested by police. PTI’s central information secretary Farrukh Habib shared the news about the extension of Khan’s interim bail on Twitter while condemning the government for treating him like a criminal.
“The whole world is making fun of Pakistan for making 150 fake cases based on retaliation against Imran Khan who has always brought honor and fame to his country but is now facing fake cases of terrorism, rebellion and murder,” he said in a Twitter post wherein he shared a screenshot of the news about the ex-premier’s interim bail.
“The fascist regime’s only aim is to threaten Imran Khan’s life by making him go round the courts again and again,” he added.
According to information provided by his party, Khan went to the office of the country’s anti-graft body, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), with his wife to face charges in a case involving the bribe of land, popularly called the Al-Qadir Trust corruption reference.
Khan was arrested by the NAB authorities in the same case earlier this month before violent protests broke out in different parts of Pakistan. The country’s top court had later declared his arrest from the compound of the Islamabad High Court illegal while instructing the officials to release him.
The government on Tuesday explained how it wanted to proceed against people involved in the violence that followed Khan’s arrest.
“Those who attacked civilian installations will be prosecuted under the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 and the Pakistan Penal Code,” said the country’s minister for power division Khurram Dastagir Khan during a news conference. “And those who attacked military installations will be prosecuted under the Army Act 1952, which has a provision for doing so.”
Khan, who has been calling for snap elections since his ouster from office last year, has accused the government of initiating a crackdown against his party supporters to “crush” it ahead of the upcoming general elections, a charge the government denies.
Labeling PM Shehbaz Sharif as “irrelevant,” Khan has said he is willing to hold talks with Pakistan’s powerful military to resolve the political impasse in the country. The South Asian country is grappling with a constitutional crisis after Khan’s PTI and its ally dissolved their governments in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces in January in a bid to force the government to declare early elections. Pakistan has historically held voting all over the country on the same date.
However, the coalition government rejected Khan’s demand to hold national elections before they are scheduled to be held in October, and also did not heed directives by the Supreme Court to hold polls in Punjab on May 14. Khan, on the other hand, insists the only resolution to Pakistan’s political instability and economic crisis are free, fair and transparent elections.
Tensions between Khan and the military are on the rise at a time when Pakistan is reeling from an economic crisis that has seen its foreign exchange reserves decline to alarming levels and its national currency decline in value by about 20% this year. According to official data, Pakistan reported inflation at 36.4 percent during the month of April, the highest since 1964.
