The caretaker provincial government on Tuesday filed a petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC) challenging the discharge of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Dr Yasmin Rashid by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in the Jinnah House (the corps commander house in Lahore) attack case.
The government submitted that the trial court discharged the PTI leader from the case in contradiction with the facts. Dr Yasmin Rashid led the rally, which attacked the Jinnah House, it submitted and added that despite available evidence, the trial court discharged the PTI leader. The government had pleaded with the court to set aside the trial court orders and hand over Dr Yasmin Rashid on physical remand to police for investigation.
On June 3, an ATC judge rejected a request by the investigation officer for physical remand of Dr Yasmin Rashid and discharged her from the case.
The Sarwar Road police had registered a case against PTI leaders and workers for attacking Jinnah House, during May-9 riots.
A day earlier, Punjab Police Chief Dr Usman Anwar had claimed that Dr Rashid a ‘key planner’ of attacks on Jinnah House and the military’s General Headquarters (GHQ) were “well planned by the PTI leaders”.
The police claimed to have detected 41 calls made by the former health minister besides calls by other party leaders to allegedly incite a mob to attack military installations in Lahore. Moreover, the department issued a forensic analysis report stating that Dr Rashid was present outside the Corps Commander House at the time of the attack.
The police chief also lashed out at social media influencers associated with the party for sharing false reports of female protestors being harassed in custody or being mistreated. Citing a total of 215 calls allegedly made to incite the mob in Lahore, he named other PTI leaders including Hammad Azhar, Mian Aslam Iqbal, Murad Raas, Mahmoodur Rasheed and Ijaz Chaudhry.
According to Dr Anwar, the police have enough evidence to take the case to trial and prove before the court that the PTI leaders were not innocent and were involved in the attacks on military installations. Based on such evidence, the provincial police chief said that the department would challenge the ATC’s decision to discharge her from the case and order her release from custody.
