Retired Captain Safdar released on bail
The Judicial Magistrate East has approved Captain (retd) Safdar’s bail-in “violating the sanctity of Mazar-e-Quaid” case and instructed him to submit surety bonds worth Rs100,000.
The development comes shortly after PML-N vice president Maryam Nawaz, addressing a press conference, had said that her husband, Safdar, had been released on bail.
Safdar had been arrested Monday morning from the hotel after he was booked for violating the sanctity of the Mazar-e-Quaid. He was presented before a judicial magistrate in the afternoon where he was granted bail.
“Mariyum Aurangzeb has just informed me that retired Captain Safdar has been released on bail,” said Maryam during a news conference, flanked by JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf.
“Me and Captain Safdar will go from Karachi together,” she said after a lengthy press conference in which she bashed the federal government.
Safdar was earlier kept at the Aziz Bhatti Police Station before he was presented before the magistrate. Maryam had taken to Twitter after Safdar was arrested and tweeted that police had “broken” the door of the hotel room they were staying in to arrest her husband.
“Police broke my room door at the hotel I was staying at in Karachi and arrested Capt. Safdar,” she tweeted.
She also retweeted a video claiming that police had ‘forcefully’ entered her hotel room to arrest her husband.
The PML-N leader was taken into custody after he was booked in a case pertaining to the violation of the sanctity of the Quaid-e-Azam’s Mazar where a day earlier he had chanted the slogan “vote ko izzat do (honor the vote)” and urged people to join him.
Party workers and supporters had responded to Safdar’s call and chanted along for an extended period of time as Maryam Nawaz and party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb looked on.
The move was met by a fierce reaction by government representatives who not only demanded an apology but approached the police, asking them to initiate legal action against all those who participated in the act.
The Quaid-e-Azam’s Mazar is protected by a set of special laws that prohibit all kinds of political activities within its premises.
Police had filed a case on the complaint of a citizen at the Brigade Police Station on Monday and named Captain Safdar, Maryam Nawaz, and 200 other unidentified people in the first information report.
According to sources, Captain Safdar has been shifted to the Aziz Bhatti Police Station.
Sindh govt distances itself
While condemning the manner in which Sindh Police acted against the PML-N leader, senior PPP leader and provincial minister Saeed Ghani stated that the arrest had not been made at the direction of the Sindh government.
“What Capt Safdar did at the Mazar was not appropriate,” Ghani conceded, but added that the arrest, “was an attempt to create differences among the PDM parties, which will be foiled”.
‘Publicity stunt’
While reacting to the development, Prime Minister’s Adviser on Interior Mirza Shahzad Akbar called the arrest a “publicity stunt” by opposition parties.
Taking to Twitter, Akbar reminded Maryam Nawaz that “Sindh police is under [the] complete and direct control” of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto, who is the PML-N’s ally these days.
@MaryamNSharif Mohtarma, Sindh police is under complete and direct control of @BBhuttoZardari (Your ally these days) Either the arrest of your husband was staged by you n your new ally as publicity stunt or you’re working against each other STILL! Which one is it? https://t.co/PPPIjgSFTd
— Mirza Shahzad Akbar (@ShazadAkbar) October 19, 2020
“Either the arrest of your husband was staged by you n your new ally as a publicity stunt or you’re working against each other STILL! Which one is it?”
Federal Minister for Maritime Affairs Ali Haider Zaidi commended the Sindh police chief for taking a “quick action” against the “hooligans who disrespected Mazar-e-Quaid”.
The federal minister said that the law must take its course.
مزارِقائد کی بیحرمتی کرنےوالےاوباشوں کیخلاف آئی جی سندھ کی فوری کارروائی قابل تحسین ہے۔ قانون ہرحال میں نافذہونا چاہئیے۔ مریم نواز ایک مرتبہ پھرجھوٹ بول رہی ہیں کہ ہوٹل کادروازہ توڑاگیا۔ ویڈیواس کےبرعکس ہے۔ آپ کوکوئی ہتھکڑی دکھائی دےرہی ہےیالگتا ہےکہ اسےزبردستی گرفتار کیا گیا ہے۔ https://t.co/9H2mpduNuP
— Ali Haider Zaidi (@AliHZaidiPTI) October 19, 2020
Ali Haider Zaidi said in his tweet that the immediate action of IG Sindh against those who desecrated Mazar-e-Quaid is commendable. The law must be enforced anyway. Maryam Nawaz is once again lying that the door of the hotel was broken. The opposite is true of videos. You see a handcuff, it looks like he was forcibly arrested.
