ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s party on Monday filed a petition in the Islamabad High Court (IHC), requesting it to term cases against the party’s leadership over the Prophet’s Mosque incident in Madinah “illegal,” local media reported. 

Pakistani police on Sunday registered a case against Khan, top officials of the former government and a hundred other unnamed individuals over sloganeering against a Pakistani delegation at the Prophet’s Mosque. 

The case was registered at the Madinah Town police station in Faisalabad under sections 295, 295-A, 296, and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, also referred to as the “blasphemy laws.” The sections relate to “harming a place of worship with the intent to insult a religion,” “deliberate and malicious intent to outrage religious sentiment,” “disturbing religious assembly and abetment.” 

The police received complaints against the leadership of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in other parts of the country as well. 

The petition filed by former information minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said the incumbent government wanted to teach him and other PTI leaders “a lesson they must not forget,” the Dawn news website reported. 

“The petitioner, like millions of other[s], came to know about the incident through social media,” the report quoted Hussain as stating. 

“Therefore, in a most unfortunate and clumsy manner, the ruling party (that is hell-bent to sort out the petitioner and his party leadership, including the former prime minister, Imran Khan) in a malafide intention started a vilification campaign against them in an effort to equal the political score [...].” 

Hussain made the federation of Pakistan, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) director-general as well as police chiefs of Islamabad, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan respondents in the case, according to the report. 

Though PTI leaders say the incident was a reaction from the public and reflective of its anger, the government says it was “planned” and “orchestrated.” 

Last week, Madinah police arrested at least five Pakistani nationals for “abusing and insulting” Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb and Minister for Narcotics Control Shahzain Bugti at the Prophet’s Mosque in the city. The arrests were also made for insulting and abusing a woman and her companions of Pakistani nationality in the courtyard of the Prophet’s Mosque. 

A spokesperson for Madinah police said their actions contradicted the “sanctity of the place” and the suspects were “referred to the competent authorities after legal procedures were completed against them.”