— Top PML-N leadership flees to Islamabad to evade arrests
ISLAMABAD: Attaullah Tarar, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and special assistant to the prime minister, on Monday approached Islamabad High Court (IHC) seeking protective bail in a case registered against him in Lahore.
He requested the court that he may grant interim bail in the case registered in the Qila Gujjar Singh police station in old Lahore.
His petition said the minister may be given a chance to appear before the relevant forum, Lahore High Court in that case, against the complaint, expressing fear that police will arrest him before he approaches the court.
The Lahore police initiated action against Tarar, as well as former PML-N minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan, in an attack on Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, speaker of the Punjab Assembly at the time, during the election of chief minister on April 16.
Following the attack, Elahi, now chief minister of Punjab, registered a case against PML-N leadership for “torturing” him during the legislative session.
Subsequently, on Saturday, the police paid a visit to Tarar’s residence in Lahore in the wee hours but returned empty-handed as the suspect managed to escape to Islamabad. It, however, delivered a notice ordering him to appear before the police for investigation.
In a tweet, Hashim Muhammad Dogar, Punjab home minister, said if Tarar understood the law, he would follow the order.
However, Azhar Mashwani, a Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) focal person, claimed that the police had raided Tarar’s house in connection with the party’s long march on May 25.
Meanwhile, it emerged top PML-N leadership has flown off to the safer confines of Islamabad, where their party is still in power, to evade arrests in various cases.
In addition to Tarar and Khan, a third suspect Malik Ahmad Khan, another assistant to the prime minister who is also wanted in this case, is already in the capital.
