Former prime minister Imran Khan is among around 150 people who were booked Sunday in a case relating to hooliganism at Masjid-e-Nabwi earlier this week. The case has been registered against the suspects at the Madina Town Police Station in Faisalabad on the complaint of a citizen named Muhammad Naeem.
Those nominated in the case include former information minister Fawad Chaudhry, ex-special assistant to the prime minister for political communication Dr Shahbaz Gill, National Assembly former deputy speaker Qasim Khan Suri, MNA Sheikh Rashid Shafique, Aneel Musarrat, a British-Pakistani businessman, and others.
Two separate groups, a 150-member group from Pakistan and another group from London, had been sent to Saudi Arabia, who harassed Pakistani pilgrims and stopped them from performing their religious rituals at Masjid-e-Nabwi, read the FIR, says a news report.
Referring to the statements of Sheikh Rashid and Rashid Shafique, the complainant said that the incident took place under a premeditated conspiracy.
Condemning the FIR against the former prime minister, PTI leader Asad Umar said that no one in recent history has fought the case against Islamophobia with more passion, logic and deep conviction than Imran Khan.
Taking to Twitter, Umar wrote: “To file a ridiculous FIR against him trying to show that he had anything to do with disrespect of Masjid-e-Nabwi, is condemnable and reprehensible.”
The FIR has been registered under Sections 295 (harming or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult a religion), 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 296 (disturbing religious assembly) and 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code, also referred to as ‘blasphemy laws’.
According to the complainant, the incident at Masjid-i-Nabwi was carried out under a “planned and thought out scheme and conspiracy”. He said that his claims were supported by the videos that are being shared on electronic and social media as well as through speeches made by certain PTI leaders.
He alleged that Imran Khan, Fawad Chaudhry, Sheikh Rashid, Shahbaz Gill and Qasim Suri were part of a conspiracy under which other PTI leaders then led delegations to Saudi Arabia to carry out the actions at the holy mosque, which were then posted on social media outlets.
Reacting to the news, former minister Chaudhry said: “A series of FIRs ordered under instructions of interior ministry, bring it on we will fight.” Former human rights minister Shireen Mazari, in a series of tweets, said she was not surprised by the “dirty tricks” of registering a “fake FIR” by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, whom she described as a “shameless criminal”. She further said that the move showed that Shehbaz Sharif – whom she dubbed the “crime minister” – and “his cabal of crooks brought in by US regime change conspiracy getting desperate because they have no legitimacy amongst nation”.
Mazari also criticised PPP and deemed it “unfortunate” that the “dark shadows continue to provide invisible cloak of protection to such low life criminal actions by their chosen ones”. She also tagged Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Maj Gen Babar Iftikhar in her tweet.
