A day after journalist and TV anchor Imran Riaz Khan was arrested, the Rawalpindi court ordered to remove all PECA 2016 Act offenses and ruled that the matter be presented again before the magistrate in Attock the same day.
The journalist who is an outspoken supporter of former prime minister Imran Khan and a critic of the military was arrested at the Islamabad Toll Plaza on July 5 night.
Khan was arrested by the Attock police when he was headed to Islamabad to obtain pre-arrest bail from the Islamabad High Court (IHC) in a treason case registered against him. Attock police with a team of the Elite Force took the journalist into custody and moved him to the Attock City Police Station, according to Dawn.
Police registered a case against the TV anchor in six different sections of the Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) along with four different sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, mainly relating to abetting, incitement and defamation.
Advocate Qadeer Janjua, a member of Imran Riaz Khan’s legal team, told reporters that the Attock judge was not authorized to hear the case which included sections of PECA.
After a 95-minute-long hearing in Attock district court, the police took Imran Riaz to Rawalpindi court to present him before a relevant judge. However, the Rawalpindi district court struck off PECA offenses and reverted the case back to Attock.
Imran Riaz’s legal team is confident he will soon get bail since they believe “he is implicated in a false and fabricated case”.
“The district court Rawalpindi has been pleased to pass an order deleting all the offenses of PECA ACT 2016. Further directed to produce Imran Riaz Khan before area magistrate of Attock today. This is first win of Imran Riaz Khan, miserable defeat of Government” said journalist’s counsel Mian Ali Ashfaq.
Earlier on July 6, the Islamabad High Court also disposed off Khan’s plea against his arrest, ruling that the case did not fall within its jurisdiction as he was arrested from Attock which falls in the precinct of the Lahore High Court.