Anchor Imran Riaz was placed under arrest last night and was kept in police custody for one day in connection with a fraud case by a Lahore district court on Wednesday.
As Riaz was leaving for Saudi Arabia for Haj on Tuesday night, he was arrested at the Allama Iqbal International Airport. Social media users shared the images of the arrest, which featured the journalist wearing an ihram.
The Nishtar Town police later brought him before Judicial Magistrate Muhammad Kamran Zafar. Riaz has been charged with abusing trust, according to the first information report (FIR), a copy of which is accessible through Dawn.com. It made reference to Pakistan Penal Code Section 406, which deals with punishment for criminal breach of trust.
The police requested a seven-day physical remand of Riaz during today’s session. According to the prosecutor, the complainant had given the anchorperson a loan of Rs0.25 billion, which he never gave back.
In the meantime, Mian Ashfaq, Riaz’s attorney, claimed that the case against his client was fraudulent. He argued, “The complainant was an agent at Maryam Nawaz’s polling station.”
The judge heard the arguments on both parties and then reserved judgment. He later gave police permission to physically remand Riaz for one day.
petitions submitted to the LHC
The Lahore High Court (LHC) received a plea from Riaz’s attorney, Azhar Siddique, earlier in the day asking for information from the first information report (FIR) that led to the anchorperson’s arrest.
Riaz was about to leave Lahore for the Haj from Saudi Arabia when “many civil-dresses officers from various authorities came and arrested him without providing any details” and “took him to an undisclosed location,” according to the appeal, a copy of which is available through Dawn.com.
“It is imperative that the respondents be summoned by this court and they inform this court as to which FIRs have now been registered, of course frivolously, against the applicant due to which he was illegally and arbitrarily arrested,” the statement read. “No information has surfaced as to which FIR was used to apprehend the Applicant on the eve of 11.06.2024.”
It further stated that on June 11, Riaz’s name was taken from the Exit Control List.
The plea asked for the petition to be granted and for the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the interior secretary, the police, and the Anti-Corruption Establishment to be instructed to document the specifics of the Federal Investigation Report (FIR) that led to the anchorperson’s arrest.
In a different filing, Riaz’s brother asked that the anchorperson be brought before the court and promptly released from “illegal and improper custody” in the LHC. A hearing before Justice Amjad Rafique has been scheduled.
The Punjab Inspector General, the Lahore Capital City Police Officer, the Cantt Superintendent of Police, the FIA Director, and the Director of the Cyber Crime Wing were included as respondents in the plea, which Dawn.com was able to view.
It said that Riaz was being held in “illegal and unlawful” detention after being “unlawfully and illegally” prevented from traveling overseas.
PTI demands quick release and denounces the detention.
The PTI, meanwhile, demanded that Riaz be released from custody, calling his arrest “absolutely condemnable.”
In a post on X, the party stated, “[It] once again represents the complete destruction of moral values of Pakistan in the last two years.” It continued, “Have some sense, your actions hurt Pakistan only.”
The party lead by Imran Khan posed the question, “Is going to Haj now considered a crime in Pakistan?” in a different tweet.
Sher Afzal Marwat, the leader of the PTI, said he was speechless and vehemently objected to the detention.
Rearrest and arrest
Two days after PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s detention on May 9, violent protests erupted across the nation, leading to the arrest of YouTuber and television presenter Imran Riaz.
After his arrest, he was reportedly transported to the Cantt police station and then to the Sialkot prison. A law enforcement official informed the Lahore High Court on May 15 that the anchorperson was freed from custody following the execution of a written undertaking. But his whereabouts were still a mystery.
Following that, on May 16, the father of the anchorperson, Muhammad Riaz, filed a first information report (FIR) with Sialkot Civil Lines police over Riaz’s purported kidnapping.
On the basis of allegations that “unidentified persons” and police officers had abducted Riaz, a formal complaint was filed under Section 365 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which prohibits kidnapping or abducting someone with the goal to unlawfully and covertly confine them.
In the LHC, the journalist’s father had also entered a petition for his recuperation.
The anchorperson’s father had broken down in tears in the LHC during the case’s hearing on May 19, asking for forgiveness because he didn’t know where his son had gone. The LHC chief justice gave the police instructions the following day to retrieve and deliver the anchorperson by May 22.
On that day, the Punjab inspector general reported that the journalist had not been seen at any police department in the nation, leading the LHC to order the ministries of defense and interior to “discharge their constitutional duties to effect the recovery” of the anchorperson.
After that, the LHC was notified that the anchorperson was not under the custody of either Military Intelligence or Inter-Services Intelligence. The high court gave “all the agencies” until May 26 to collaborate in order to locate the anchorperson and have him appear in court by May 30.
When that day finally arrived, the Punjab IG informed the LHC that phone numbers linked to the case had been tracked back to Afghanistan.
In the June 6 hearing, the anchorperson’s attorney said that they were “wearing thin” despite the Punjab government having told the high court that they were making efforts to locate the journalist.
The LHC had set a deadline of July 25 for the police to find the missing journalist during the July 5 hearing. However, the bench’s unavailability prevented any hearing from taking place on the scheduled day.
During that specific session, the Ministry of Defence was represented by retired Brigadier Falak Naz, who told the court, “We are working on tracing locations and other issues.” Imran Riaz is being recuperated as quickly as possible.
After informing LHC on September 6 that the police would provide “good news” in the coming days, the Punjab IG was given until September 13 to make his decision.
Despite not being able to provide any significant “good news,” the Inspector General (IG) told the court on September 13 that the investigation was “going in the right direction.”
The Punjab police chief was granted a “last opportunity” by the LHC on September 20 to retrieve Riaz by September 26. The proceedings in a petition demanding his rescue were postponed until that date.
On September 25, he was at last freed following over four months of “being missing.”
A special court later granted bail to Riaz after he was detained earlier this year in connection with a graft case involving the construction of Dhrabi Lake in Chakwal. But the anchor was arrested again in another incident involving violence outside PTI founder Imran Khan’s home in Zaman Park.
He was granted post-arrest bail on March 10 by an anti-terrorism court, subject to the provision of Rs 200,000 in surety bonds.
