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- July 18, 2024
- Kainat Shakeel
- 0
Sanam Javed, a PTI activist, was eventually set free on Thursday when the Islamabad High Court (IHC) ruled that her incarceration was “illegal” and permitted her to travel back to Punjab. Her release was ordered by the IHC on Monday, along with a warning to the police and other law enforcement organizations not to arrest her in the future. Javed, who has been imprisoned for more than a year after being charged in twelve cases following the riots on May 9, 2023, was given some relief by the ruling.
Judge Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb ordered the PTI activist to “avoid unnecessary rhetoric” or face reversal of the court’s judgment. He also restricted her from leaving Islamabad. To prevent what it claimed to be her “disappearance,” PTI moved its activist and her family to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) House on Tuesday. She was released from a case about the May 9 rioting brought against her in Gujranwala by the Lahore High Court on July 11.
Javed was given bail in every case that was filed against her in Lahore, therefore she contested her physical remand in a new case from Gujranwala. But as soon as she left the central jail in Gujranwala on Saturday, she was retaken into custody by Islamabad police, and she was then sent to Islamabad. She was released from custody on Sunday after a judicial magistrate ruled in her favor; nevertheless, the Balochistan Police took her into custody once more.
Judge Aurangzeb decided to free Javed on Thursday while considering a petition that her father had filed.
“Sanam Javed will not be arrested in any further case,” Attorney General of Pakistan (AGP) Mansoor Usman Awan declared in his speech to the court. After the hearing, the IHC rejected Javed’s bail request and deemed her arrest to be “illegal.” The Balochistan Police were not pressing for the remand request, AGP Awan continued.
He declared, “Sanam Javed is free now and can go to her province [Punjab].”
In line with what he said on Monday, Justice Aurangzeb asked Javed’s attorney, Mian Ali Ashfaq, for an assurance that her client would refrain from using any more “unnecessary rhetoric.” The attorney responded in the affirmative.
Ashfaq told media outside the courtroom about his contact with AGP Awan, who affirmed the withdrawal of the first information report (FIR) filed in Balochistan against Javed. Javed’s attorney announced that the cases brought in Islamabad against his client will also be dropped in two days.
He told reporters that the AGP had declared there would be no more arrests and restated to the media his assurance that Javed would refrain from “unnecessary rhetoric,” for which he apologized to the court on her behalf.