Web Desk (LTN NEWS): On Thursday, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) started hearing PTI’s case against Shahbaz Gill’s physical remand. At the center of the case was the claim that he was tortured while in custody.
The Islamabad advocate general, the additional attorney general, and top police officials were called to court, where the prosecutor insisted that the fiery party leader had not been tortured.
A judicial magistrate gave Gill to the Islamabad police for two days and told them to give him a medical exam. This happened the day before.
But the PTI leader was being held at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail because he was charged with sedition. This jail is under the control of the Punjab government, where the PTI and PML-Q are in power.
In order to stop the handover, Gill was moved to the Rawalpindi District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital after he said he was having trouble breathing.
There was a standoff, but the Islamabad police were finally able to take Gill into custody. On Wednesday night, they took him to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims).
The PTI says that Gill has been tortured while he has been in jail. The party has also said that the leader of the PTI is being forced to say bad things about party leader Imran Khan.
The trial
On Thursday, IHC Acting Chief Justice Aamer Farooq heard Gill’s appeal against his physical remand. The politician was represented by lawyers Faisal Chaudhry and Shoaib Shaheen.
The petition named as respondents the Additional Sessions Judge (East), the Islamabad Inspector General of Police, the SSP Investigation, the SHO Kohsar, the City Magistrate Ghulam Mustafa Chandio, and the state.
During the hearing, Shaheen said that the judge for the additional sessions did not follow the “guidelines” in the law.
I found out that Gill was accepted into Pims. Justice Farooq said that the Adiala Jail superintendent would be called in so that we could check the facts.
Shaheen said at one point that they weren’t allowed to meet Gill. The judge said this would also be talked about when the officials showed up.
The hearing was then put off until 3 p.m. When the hearing started again, the Islamabad advocate general told the court that Gill didn’t help when a team from the medical board came to examine him.
Justice Farooq said that all the stories about how the PTI leader was tortured were hurting the police’s reputation.
The judge said, “We want to find out if Shahbaz Gill was tortured or not.”
Rizwan Abbasi, the prosecutor, insisted that the PTI leader had not been tortured, saying that he had been taken into custody on August 9 and had a medical checkup on August 11.
“Did Gill say anything to the court about how he was tortured?” Farooq, the judge, asked.
Gill’s lawyer, Faisal Chaudhry, said that the Pims hospital wouldn’t let him see his client. Justice Farooq replied, “You can’t meet during a remand period.”
The judge asked the IG of Islamabad to tell the court what should be done. Shoaib Shaheen, Gill’s other lawyer, said that his team did not trust the Islamabad IG in response.
Justice Farooq didn’t like what Shaheen said, so he said, “Stop interrupting. Let me take charge of things.”
The court was also upset that the medical officer at Adiala Jail didn’t have any records about the leader’s health.
Justice Farooq asked Gill when he started having trouble breathing. He asked, “Did the problem start right around the time the additional district and session’s judge decided to hand Gill over to Islamabad police?”
The judge said, “I’m sending a notice to the additional superintendent and the medical officer of Adiala Jail, as well as to the officers in charge of the Islamabad Police.”
He criticized the officials, saying, “People like you give institutions a bad name.”
Gill’s lawyer, Shaheen, asked the court to stop the remand if the hearing was going to be put off until Friday. Justice Farooq said, “Your client is not on remand, so there is no need for a suspension.”
The court said it would write a decision and put off the hearing until August 22. (Monday).
Earlier, the court sent notices to the respondents, except for the session’s judge.
The court also ordered the Islamabad police inspector general, the SSP investigation, the SHO Kohsar, the Adiala Jail superintendent, the medical officer, and all of the jail’s records to show up.
The order said, “Notice shall also be sent to the learned advocate general of Islamabad and the additional attorney general of Islamabad to appear at the given time to help the court.”
The court told the advocate general to make sure that the Islamabad inspector general of police, SSP investigation, SHO Kohsar, and City Magistrate Ghulam Mustafa Chandio were there.
While this was going on, the Pims medical board, which was set up to examine Gill, gave its report to the court of Judicial Magistrate Raja Farrukh Ali Khan.
Wednesday night, PTI Senator Ejaz Chaudhry told the press outside of Pims that Gill was brought to the facility around 10 p.m.
“He was on a gurney. He was having a hard time breathing, and it looked like he couldn’t breathe at all,” he said, adding that “hundreds” of police officers were surrounding the politician.
He said that doctors at the place said Gill should go to the hospital because his health was so bad. He also complained that there were police officers in the room Gill was in, which added to Gill’s mental and physical stress.
He said that Gill hadn’t said anything that no one else had already said.
