A judicial magistrate in Islamabad on Tuesday remanded PTI leader Ali Amin Gandapur in police custody for two more days for threatening government and national institutions.
He was arrested last week outside from the building of the Peshawar High Court’s Dera Ismail Khan bench on charges of two criminal cases registered against him by DI Khan police.
On Saturday, Islamabad and Punjab police from Bhakar took the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader into coustody from Dera Ismail Khan An Islamabad judicial magistrate on Sunday remanded him into police custody for a day.
The first information report (FIR) registered against Gandapur mentions an audio leak, in which he could purportedly be heard using derogatory language against the federal coalition. According to the FIR, the audio was aired on a private news channel.
Earlier today, Gandapur was presented in an anti-terrorism court (ATC) upon the expiry of his one-day physical remand, following which the ATC judge directed police to produce him in a relevant district court as terrorism charges had been removed from the case against him.
Gandapur was presented in the court of Judicial Magistrate Ihtasham Alam Khan today, where Investigation Officer (IO) Abdul Sattar requested a 10-day extension in the PTI leader’s remand for voice matching, weapon recovery and further investigation.
According to the court orderthe IO contended that he could only get the DVD recording of the incident from the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) due to a shortage of time and it could not be matched with Gandapur’s voice since the procedure was required to be done “in a proper manner and procedure at a proper place/laboratory”.
The court observed that “admittedly, voice matching is very much necessary in order to brought on record the truth or otherwise of the matter”.
Therefore, it said, “for the purpose of voice matching and for further investigation, two days physical remand/custody of the accused is allowed subject to pre and post medical examination of the accused”.
It directed the IO to submit a report on the investigation’s progress and present Gandapur before the court at the next hearing on April 13.
The “IO is directed to show concrete progress in investigation”, the court order read.
Earlier, Gandapur was presented before Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Special Judge Raja Jawad Abbas, who asked the PTI leader if he was tortured.
The judge said Gandapur should be presented in the relevant district court since terrorism provisions were struck down in the case against him.
According to the court order issued by the judicial magistrate today, an ATC struck down the terrorism provision from the FIR against Gandapur.
