Imran asks CJP Isa to ensure level-playing field for PTI ahead of February 8 elections

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Incarcerated Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Thursday raised several concerns regarding the “discrimination” his party is facing, in a letter to Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa seeking equal opportunities for his party to lead its political campaign.

The letter, calls on the top judge to direct the federal and provincial governments as well as the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to allow PTI, like all other political parties, to hold political meetings and gatherings without “discrimination”.

The deposed prime minister, who was removed from power via a no-trust motion in April last year, stated in the letter that the PTI leaders and activists were being targeted through the registration of multiple and successive criminal cases to keep them behind bars. He termed this a “tactic of abuse and oppression”, which he said is being used all over the country. “Those bailed out by the courts in one or more cases are immediately booked in further case that purport to pertain to events several months in the past. Often several FIRs are registered against persons affiliated with the PTI with respect to the same event. The same persons are also implicated in successive FIRs with respect to different and unrelated events all across the country,” the letter read.

The former premier, who is incarcerated in Adiala jail in cipher and corruption case, said that several women arrested in the light of the May 9 events have remained imprisoned for nearly six months. The letter drew the CJP’s attention towards the PTI’s petitions that moved the provincial high courts against such arrests and registration of cases in “undisclosed” FIRs but “the unfavourable observations of a bench of the apex court” disabled the high courts from preserving the PTI leaders and activists’ right to liberty.