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Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan on Thursday got a temporary relief after an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan granted interim bail till September 1 in a terrorism case registered against him for threatening police, judiciary and other state institutions during a rally in the capital last week. According to news agency PTI report citing the Dawn News, judge Raja Jawad Abbas Hassan of the anti-terrorism court in Pakistan granted the bail to Imran Khan till September 1 against a surety of ₹100,000.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan's bail plea was filed in the court on Thursday prior to his arrival, with the petitioner contending that the terrorism case against him was registered by police as an “act of revenge", even as security was tightened around the Federal Judicial Complex, where the hearing was held, with police and Frontier Corps personnel deployed at the site and the roads in the complex’s surroundings were also blocked, the report said.
Meanwhile, Imran Khan's party called on supporters to “come out on the streets and then head to Islamabad the next day" if he is taken into custody after he was booked under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (punishment for acts of terrorism) on Sunday for “threatening" a female judge and senior police officers at a public rally in Islamabad a day earlier.
During his address, Khan had threatened to file cases against top police officials, a woman magistrate, Election Commission of Pakistan and political opponents over the treatment meted out to his aide Shahbaz Gill, who was arrested on charges of sedition, the report said.
Imran Khan, at the rally had warned the judiciary against its “biased" attitude towards his party, saying that it should brace itself for the consequences and also warned additional district and sessions judge Zeba Chaudhry, who had approved the two-day physical remand of his aide Shahbaz Gill’s on the request of the capital police in a sedition case, that she, too, would face dire consequences, the report said. The PTI chief had threatened to file cases against Islamabad’s inspector general of police and deputy inspector general of police, saying, “We won’t spare you," the report added.
(With inputs from PTI)