Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the leader of the Awami Muslim League (AML), will be produced before the court today (Saturday) as his two-day physical remand in the case filed against him for making accusations against the former president Asif Ali Zardari comes to an end.
A close ally of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan, the former minister was detained on February 2 from the Murree Motorway in a move that drew harsh criticism from the former premier.
Later, he was arrested for sledging about foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and threatening police officers in two additional cases.
The prosecution will give the court information about Rashid’s photogrammetry and voice-matching tests at today’s hearing in the Judicial Magistrate Umar Shabbir court.
On February 2, early in the morning, the police allegedly took Rashid from Murree Road. However, the former interior minister and his nephew, Sheikh Rashid Shafiq, disagreed with the police’s account and claimed that the man was taken into custody from his house in Rawalpindi rather than from the highway.
Raja Inayat Ur Rehman, the president of the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) Rawalpindi Division, had reported Rashid to the police in Islamabad’s Aabpara Police Station after alleging that former president Asif Ali Zardari was planning an assassination attempt against the PTI leader.
In the FIR, the PPP divisional president claimed that the AML chief had attempted to discredit a former leader and put the PPP co-chairman and his family in “permanent danger” by spreading rumors about them.