RAWALPINDI: Awami Muslim League (AML) leader and PTI ally Sheikh Rashid was arrested from his residence in Rawalpindi on Sunday evening, his lawyer Sardar Abdul Razzak Khan confirmed to the media.
He stated that men in civvies took the veteran politician Sheikh Rashid into custody from his residence, claiming that the former interior minister had been taken to some “undisclosed location”.
The lawyer also claimed Sh Rashid’s nephew Sheikh Shakir and houseworker Sheikh Imran had also been arrested.
Sh Rashid’s arrest coincided with the rearrest of PTI President Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi on Sunday for the thirteenth time immediately after a Lahore Anti-Corruption Court discharged him from a graft case pertaining to the Lahore Master Plan 2050, his lawyer Rana Intezar Hussain said.
He said “They (officials) said he has been arrested in a terrorism case and was being taken to Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.”
Pervaiz Elahi is among several PTI leaders and workers who have been arrested amid the state’s crackdown on the PTI leadership following the violent riots in the country after Imran’s first arrest on May 9.
He was presented in the court today following his arrest by the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment’s (ACE) in Rawalpindi yesterday, which according to another one of his lawyers Sardar Abdul Razzaq was the 12th time the PTI leader was detained since June 1 following the May 9 episode.
Separately, in a video message, the AML leader’s nephew Sheikh Rashid Shafiq said his uncle was arrested by the Punjab police from Bahria Town Phase III in Rawalpindi and his current whereabouts were unknown.
سابق وفاقی وزیر داخلہ شیخ رشید احمد صاحب کی گرفتاری کے حوالے سے ویڈیو پیغام pic.twitter.com/Nf3PkLUMFj
— Sheikh Rashid Shafiq (@SheikhRashid60) September 17, 2023
“Both the Islamabad and Punjab police have told the high courts in writing that Sheikh Rashid is not proclaimed in any case,” he said.
Shafiq also requested the higher courts to take notice of the arrest and find out where his uncle was taken. “We will fight the legal battle and have always indulged in politics of principles,” he added.
In a post on social media platform X, the PTI condemned Rashid’s arrest. “The political victimisation and fascism continues, this time with the arrest of Sheikh Rashid,” it said.
The political victimisation and fascism continues, this time with the arrest of Sheikh Rashid.
This is yet another episode of mockery of law in Pakistan. Despite a caretaker government in place the fascism, and blatant violation of human rights continues! pic.twitter.com/ZG7TF8sD0c
— PTI (@PTIofficial) September 17, 2023
Rashid’s arrest comes amid the state’s crackdown on the PTI and its supporters following incidents of vandalism on May 9 — when party chairman Imran Khan was first arrested from the premises of the Islamabad High Court.
Earlier this year in June, the AML leader had alleged that the Islamabad police broke into his house and beat up his servants. He had also claimed that in a second incident, a “force clad in plain clothes” tortured his employees at his Lal Haveli residence in Rawalpindi.
‘Elite living life according to their terms and conditions’
Earlier in the day, in a message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Sh Rashid said the poor had been pushed into a quagmire as ordinary man was helpless with only the elite living a life according to their terms and conditions.
— Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed fan (@shkhrashied) September 17, 2023
He said taxes should have been imposed on the elite but instead the poor were chosen for the purpose. Middle class had been completely crushed and didn’t know how to survive, he remarked.
He said poverty and hunger did not ask to which political party they belonged before hitting a family. How the masses would ensure income to meet the food needs, pay rent and provide education to their children, the AML head asked.
The former interior minister also questioned how an industrial and agri revolution would materialise amid the skyrocketing prices of electricity and petrol, adding that the gas tariff was also to be increased by September-end.
According to Rashid, some decisions are made on earth with others in “heavens” and some decisions from “heavens” could also come into effect before elections without elaborating the use of heavens. He termed survival as the biggest problem currently faced by the common men, saying that the timing of polls was of secondary importance.
