File photo of Asad Umar. Aamir Qureshi—AFP
A day after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan was arrested while appearing for a bail hearing at the Islamabad High Court (IHC), party Secretary General Asad Umar was taken into custody on Wednesday by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) from the premises of the same court.
Umar was arrested by CTD officials of the Islamabad Police when he was leaving the IHC Bar Room. He and several other PTI leaders had been working with the party’s legal team to prepare a petition for submission in the IHC to seek a meeting with Khan. Videos of the arrest, available on social media, showed the PTI lawyers attempting to resist Umar’s detention, however the law enforcers were able to overpower them and secure custody of the party leader.
According to local media, Umar had been charged in two cases—along with other PTI leaders—for the damages to public property caused by the protests and riots that broke out after Khan’s arrest. The cases against him have been registered in Islamabad’s Tarnol and Aabpara police stations. However, PTI lawyer Faisal Chaudhry claimed to media that it was still unclear under which case Umar had been arrested.
Eyewitnesses said police had also tried to arrest PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who is also named in the cases that led to Umar’s arrest, but party workers and lawyers resisted the attempt and did not permit him to be taken into custody. Apart from Qureshi, PTI’s Saifullah Sarwar Khan Nyazee, and Ghulam Sarwar Khan were also present at the IHC when Umar was arrested.
More arrests
Earlier in the day, police in Punjab arrested PTI leader and former Punjab governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema from his residence in Lahore. Videos of the arrest shared by his family show Cheema cooperating with ‘plainclothes’ law enforcers when they sought to detain him. His family, meanwhile, said they were not informed about the charges under which he was arrested.
A day earlier, amidst protests and riots undertaken by the PTI following Khan’s arrest, party leader Ali Haider Zaidi was placed under arrest in Karachi. Several PTI supporters have likewise been arrested for their role in the demonstrations, however it is as yet unclear how many were taken into custody nationwide.