Published on: August 22, 2025 6:48 AM
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Thursday discharged 15 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers in a case related to the October 5 protest and alleged violence against police.
The workers were produced before ATC Judge Manzer Ali Gill on completion of a three-day physical remand. The police did not seek further custody and instead requested a judicial remand.
However, the defence counsel argued that the accused were not involved in the case and they were arrested from a birthday party. The counsel pleaded with the court to discharge his clients. After hearing arguments, the court ordered that all 15 accused be discharged from the case.
Those discharged include Dildar Ali, Muhammad Zaeem Leghari, Zain Khan, Usman Akbar, Ghulam Qadir, Ali Hassan, Samar Iqbal, Tayyab Ahmed, Usman Pal, Muhammad Arsalan, Najeebullah, Muhammad Owais, Malik Suhail, Daniyal Mohsin, and Muhammad Shoaib.Among those discharged were also media professionals, including reporter Zaeem Leghari and cameraman Ghulam Qadir.
The case was registered at Shafiqabad Police Station in connection with the PTI protest and subsequent clash with police on October 5.
Separately, an Additional District and Session Court on Thursday maintained the decision of judicial magistrate in which it rejected the prosecution request for further physical remand of 63 PTI workers in cases registered by Margalla and I-9 Police Stations.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Shabbir Bhatti heard the appeal of prosecution. During the hearing of the appeal, lawyers Ansar Kiani and Mirza Asim Baig appeared in the court on behalf of the PTI workers and took the position that both these FIRs were filed by an unrelated person.
The workers were first kept in detention, the cases were registered after 2-3 days, they said, adding that the police had requested to arrest other accused on the basis of the identification of the accused.
The Judicial Magistrate had rejected the request of the police and judicially remanded the accused. We have filed bails for the accused, therefore, the appeal has been deliberately filed which is not hearable, the court should reject it, they argued.
After hearing the arguments of the lawyers, the court reserved the decision and later, it rejected both the prosecution appeals and ordered the judicial magistrate’s decision to be upheld.
