KARACHI: Sindh Police on Friday registered an FIR against former interior minister and Awami Muslim League (AML) chief Sheikh Rashid in Karachi for “using foul language against Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto”.
The FIR was registered in Mochko Police Station.
The former federal minister, according to the first information report, made “immoral” and “nasty” comments which infuriated the public and created a law-and-order situation in the area.
The FIR registered against Rashid includes four sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), including 500 (Punishment for defamation), 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups).
The development comes after Rashid was arrested on Thursday morning and taken to the Aabpara Police Station in Islamabad, following which he was presented in front of a local court in Islamabad. The court sent him on a two-day physical remand.
The prosecutor had requested an 8-day physical remand, but Judicial Magistrate Omar Shabbir rejected the petition.
Rashid was arrested on a police complaint filed by Raja Inayatur Rehman, the vice president of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Rawalpindi Division, wherein he said that the AML chief, in a television interview on Jan 27, alleged that Zardari got the assistance of some terrorists to plan Imran’s murder.
The arrest came after the Islamabad Capital police issued Rashid a final warning to appear before it over a complaint lodged against him.
In a video message on Wednesday evening before the arrest, Sheikh Rashid had stated that the court had already instructed that this police notice “be withdrawn”.
