ISLAMABAD: A district court in Islamabad on Wednesday rejected a police request for seven-day extension in the physical remand of Dr. Shahbaz Gill, chief of staff of ex-premier Imran Khan, and ordered to send him to Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi on judicial remand.
Gill was arrested on August 9, a day after he made a controversial comment on a talk show aired by a private news channel, asking army officers not to follow orders of their top command if they were “against the sentiments of the masses.”
The country’s national media regulator described the statement as “seditious” and said it amounted to inciting revolt within the military. The regulator also issued a show-cause notice to the channel, ARY News, for airing the “illegal” content. The channel has since been off air.
During the hearing, special prosecutor in the case Rizwan Abbasi informed the court that the police have yet to complete investigation in the case and conduct a polygraph test of the suspect.
Abbasi argued the capital police had seized a mobile phone and four USBs from Gill’s residence at Parliament Lodges during the physical remand that lasted for 48 hours, adding a case had also been registered against him.
“The police have yet to recover the main phone of Shahbaz Gill to complete the investigation,” he said while urging the court to grant a seven-day extension in the suspect’s physical remand.
Gill’s counsel Faisal Fareed rebutted the prosecutor’s arguments, saying the police were already in possession of his client’s mobile phone who had given the interview to the channel using a landline number.
Advocate Fareed also read out an Islamabad High Court verdict regarding torture on Shahbaz Gill during the police custody.
“The court has confirmed Shahbaz Gill was subjected to the torture and this torture was not disclosed,” he argued.
Special prosecutor Abbasi, however, urged the magistrate, Malik Aman, to grant the physical custody of the suspect as the allegations of torture were yet to be proved.
The court reserved the judgment in the case for a while and later ordered to send Gill to Adiala Jail on judicial remand while rejecting the police request for the extension in his physical remand.
Speaking to reporters outside the court, Gill confirmed once again he had been subjected to sexual abuse while he was in police custody.
“It’s absolutely true,” he said.
“I was subjected to torture to issue a statement against someone,” he added without saying anything further.
The acting chief justice of Islamabad High Court, Justice Aamir Farooq, took notice of the “very serious issue” of Gill’s allegations and said the matter could not “simply be ignored as it can entail serious consequences for future investigations.”
“It would be only appropriate that Ministry of Interior, Government of Pakistan should look into the matter and appoint an Inquiry Officer preferably a retired Judge of the High Court to examine the issue,” the 21-page order released on Wednesday said.
