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The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday issued notices to the deputy commissioner and police on a petition challenging the detention of PTI Senior Vice President Sher Afzal Marwat under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO).<\/p>\n
Marwat was arres\u00adted<\/a> from outside the LHC on Thursday, where he had arrived to join a protest. Footage of his arrest shared by the PTI on X (formerly Twitter) had shown policemen dragging him by the collar as several lawyers tried to stop them. He was later moved to an undisclosed location.<\/p>\n Police sources had told Dawn<\/em> that the arrest was made under the MPO. The law emp\u00adowers the police to detain a person considered \u201cprejudicial to public safety or the maintenance of public order\u201d.<\/p>\n The arrest was strongly criticised by PTI leaders and lawyers\u2019 bodies. A statement shared on the party\u2019s official X account held the caretaker government responsible for \u201cacting as a facilitator\u201d during the \u201cunabated lawlessness\u201d.<\/p>\n Today, Marwat\u2019s brother filed a petition in the LHC seeking the quashing of the PTI leader\u2019s detention orders. He urged the court to declare the arrest \u201cillegal, maliciously motivated, ab initio void and non-est\u201d.<\/p>\n The plea, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com<\/em>, named Lahore deputy commissioner, superintendent central jail, Lahore inspector general of police, Lahore capital city police officer, DIG operations, DIG investigations, Civil Lines SP, district intelligence and the station house officer of the Mozang police station as respondents in the case.<\/p>\n The application stated that the government had detained Marwat as a \u201cpolitical vendetta\u201d. It also demanded that Marwat be released till the disposal of the petition.<\/p>\n The petition was taken up by LHC\u2019s Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhary in the chamber. He issued notices to and sought responses from the deputy commissioner and other respondents in the case.<\/p>\n The hearing was subsequently adjourned.<\/p>\n Speaking to media outside the court later, Marwat\u2019s lawyer Latif Khosa claimed his client was detained based on \u201cassumptions\u201d, recalling that gates of the LHC were closed ahead of the PTI leader\u2019s arrest yesterday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went to the Mozang police station later but were told Marwat was not brought there,\u201d he said, adding that even the CCPO office was empty.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is madness to think that Sher Afzal Marwat would disrupt peace in Punjab,\u201d Khosa asserted. \u201cThis is a mockery of lawyers in Pakistan.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Advocate Rana Intizar, who is also the president of the Lahore Bar Association, said lawyers had decided to restrict the entry of police inside courts until Marwat was released.<\/p>\n It must be noted that Marwat, one of the counsels for former prime minister Imran Khan, was catapulted into the spotli\u00adg\u00ad\u00adht over the past few weeks due to his fiery addresses at the PTI\u2019s public events.<\/p>\n The lawyer, who was recently made<\/a> a senior vice president of the party, has been at the forefront at a time when the majority of the party\u2019s core leadership is in hiding or has parted ways.<\/p>\n Last week, Marwat had accused<\/a> the police of attempting to \u201cabduct\u201d him near the Gulabad area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\u2019s Lower Dir district.<\/p>\n Subsequently, the Peshawar High Court had ordered<\/a> the KP government not to arrest Marwat until further orders in four cases recently registered against him after he attended his party\u2019s conventions in the province.<\/p>\nLahore Bar Association bans entry of police in courts<\/h2>\n