LHC grants bail to Imran’s wife in graft case
LAHORE: Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday granted bail until May 23 to former prime minister Imran Khan’s wife in a grat case, a lawyer in their legal team said.
Imran was arrested by the country’s anti-grat agency last week in the same case, prompting violent protests across the country, which is already reeling from a crippling economic crisis. He was later released and received bail from a court in Islamabad for two weeks.
Imran’s wife, Bushra Bibi, was co-accused along with Imran in the case, which pertained to the alleged receiving of financial help from a land developer in the seting-up of Al Qadir University of which the former premier and his spouse are trustees.
“We had requested for a protective bail for Bushra Bibi in Al Qadir Trust Case and a two-judge bench of LHC has granted the bail till May 23,” Bibi’s lawyer, Intizar Hussain Panjutha, told reporters.
Imran has claimed that authorities have devised a plan to humiliate him by puting his wife Bushra Bibi in jail.
“Using the pretext of violence while I was inside the jail, they have assumed the role of judge, jury and executioner,” he alleged in a series of tweets. He claimed that authorities have planned to keep him in jail for ten years by using some sedition law to keep me inside for the next ten years.
Imran termed the protest of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) outside the Supreme Court a drama and said its only purpose was to overawe the Chief Justice of Pakistan so that he doesn’t give a verdict according to the Constitution.
The former premier claimed that the coalition government will once again suspend internet services and ban social media. He accused the authorities concerned of violating basic human rights.
“Never has the sanctity of ‘chadar and chaar diwari’ been violated the way it is being done by these criminals. This is a deliberate atempt to instil so much fear in people that when they come to arrest me tomorrow, people won’t come out.”
Referring to the arrest of the PTI members, Imran said: “Then will follow a complete crackdown on whatever is let of PTI leadership and workers. And finally, they will ban the largest and only federal party of Pakistan. (Just as they banned the Awami League in East Pakistan). To ensure there’s no public reaction, they have done two things, first deliberate terror is unleashed not just on PTI workers but on common citizens as well. Second, the media is totally controlled and muzzled.”