Former Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was arrested again on Tuesday. His arrest comes shortly after he was released from a jail in Rawalpindi on the orders of an apex court.
Qureshi, 66, served as Pakistan’s foreign minister from 2018 to 2022 under Khan’s regime. He is also the Vice President of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.
According to Geo TV, the Islamabad High Court on Tuesday ordered Qureshi’s release after he affirmed that he would refrain from agitating and inciting activists. However, shortly after his release from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, the Punjab Police arrested the former minister again, the report said.
Qureshi was among the top PTI leaders arrested following violent protests following Khan’s arrest on 9 May. Khan’s supporters vandalized a dozen military installations including Lahore Corps Commander House, Mianwali Airbase, ISI Bhavan in Faisalabad and also set ablaze sensitive defense installations.
The Army Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi was also attacked by the mob for the first time. Like Qureshi, Khan’s close aide and former human rights minister Shireen Mazari was also arrested again on Monday. Mazari quit the party and announced his retirement from active politics on Tuesday.
He made the announcement after being released from arrest for the fourth time since May 12, when he was picked up by the police from his residence and sent to jail.
Mazari has been an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s military and the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
On Tuesday, another prominent leader of Khan’s party, Faiyazul Hasan Chouhan, said at a press conference that he was leaving the party over Khan’s “politics of confrontation with the state and the army”.
Meanwhile, Khan termed the exodus of his party leaders after Mazari’s announcement as a “forced divorce”.
Khan tweeted, “We all have heard about forced marriage in Pakistan, but a new phenomenon has come to the fore of PTI, Forced Divorce.”
In another tweet, Khan said, “I appreciate and salute all those senior members who are resisting excessive pressure to leave the party.”
The 70-year-old Khan, who is facing over 100 cases ranging from corruption to terrorism, said he sympathized with all those who were pressured to leave the party.
An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan had granted bail to Khan till June 8 in eight cases related to the violence that broke out at the judicial complex here in March.
Cases were registered against the former prime minister at various police stations in Islamabad after clashes broke out between the police and his supporters when the PTI party chief appeared before a court in the judicial complex on March 18.
The clashes started when Khan attended the much-awaited hearing in the Toshakhana corruption case.
The Toshakhana is a department under the administrative control of the Cabinet Division and stores precious gifts given to rulers, parliamentarians, bureaucrats and officials by other governments and heads of state and foreign dignitaries.
Cricketer-turned-politician Khan was ousted from power in April last year after he lost a vote of no confidence in his leadership, which he alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia. was part of. , China and Afghanistan.
(with PTI inputs)
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