
Court issues warrants for 70 PTI workers
Despite being summoned, none of the accused appeared before the court.
After waiting for two hours, the judge issued bailable arrest warrants for all 70 and directed them to submit bail bonds of Rs50,000 each on the next hearing date.
Former president Arif Alvi, PTI founder's sister Aleema Khan, K-P Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, Hammad Azhar, MNA Shahid Khattak, and Asad Qaiser are among the accused.

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Business Recorder
5 hours ago
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Aafia Siddiqui is Pakistan's daughter, govt's priority, says FM Ishaq Dar
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Sunday stated there should be no misconception Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who's imprisoned in US, is Pakistan's daughter and a priority for the government. Addressing the Pakistani community in New York, Dar said that efforts to resolve Aafia's case will continue until a solution is found. He said this in response to the social media reaction on his earlier statement regarding the incarcerated Pakistani neuroscientist. Addressing an event in Washington on Friday, responding to a query about imprisonment of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan, Foreign Minister Dar had made comparison between incarceration of Imran and Aafia. He had said if 'due process of the law has resulted in that action [arrest of Aafia],' then the same applies to Imran. 'There's no exception.' 'Legal due process has no exceptions', Dar compares Aafia, Imran's arrests Here in New York when Dar clarified that he was asked about Imran, upon which, he said when the government raises the issue of Aafia's release with the US, it is told that the legal process does not allow for it. He said he just tried to make his point on the PTI founder's arrest as there is also a legal process in Imran's case. Dismissing the criticism he received, he said that the entire world is appreciating Pakistan's activities in the United States, yet opponents have begun criticising, following which, he said, he had to clarify. He also said, 'If someone doesn't understand English, what is my fault?' After receiving the backlash, in a statement a day ago, FM Dar had said his comments in the US about the case of Dr Aafia were being 'taken out of context'. 'Our government's stance on the issue of Dr Aafia Siddiqui's release is clear and unequivocal,' he had said in a post on X. The deputy prime minister further stated that the government had also written a letter to former US president Joe Biden on the issue of Aafia, and even sought clemency for her from Biden before he left the office. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also met her sister two days ago to assure full support, he said, adding that Pakistan has made every effort to secure the release of Aafia Siddiqui. Dar said that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government has always supported the release of Aafia, providing all diplomatic and judicial support for her release. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif also spoke to former US president Barack Obama in this regard, he said, adding that the government made immense efforts to secure Aafia's release in 2015, 2016 and 2017 and it continued to do so.


Express Tribune
17 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Imran seeks bail relief from apex court
Listen to article Former prime minister Imran Khan has challenged a Lahore High Court (LHC) order rejecting his bail pleas, contending that prosecution has adopted three different stances to link him with the alleged conspiracy of May 9, 2023 rioting incidents, all of which were rejected by different courts. The PTI founder through his counsel Salman Safdar filed a petition against the LHC order in the Supreme Court. A division bench of the high court led by Justice Shahbaz Ali Rizvi on June 24 held that Imran was allegedly involved in the rioting conspiracy in view of the testimonies of two police officials. Commenting on the order, the petition said the prosecution repeatedly failed to establish any credible nexus between Imran Khan and the alleged occurrence as narrated in the FIR. According to the petition, the prosecution in its attempts to link the petitioner with the purported acts of conspiracy and abetment resorted to three conflicting versions, each differing in terms of the alleged date, time, location, and witnesses of abetment. It said all three versions have been judicially disbelieved either by the anti-terrorism courts (ATCs) or by the LHC. It noted that during proceedings for pre-arrest bail before the ATC-III in Lahore, the prosecution belatedly claimed that a police official, Hassam Afzal, allegedly overheard a conspiracy at Zaman Park. It claimed that this event happened two days before May 9on May 7. The prosecution also claimed that another Inspector Asmat Kamal overheard the abetment at Chakri Rest Area five days prior to the occurrenceon May 4, 2023 "This version, however, was discredited due to the prosecution's failure to justify the delayed disclosure of such critical information and was consequently rejected by the learned Special Judge ATC-III in Lahore who confirmed the pre-arrest bails of the petitioner on March 1, 2024 in FIR No 366/23 and 1078/23." The petition said that after the collapse of its first narrative, the prosecution advanced a second version during the hearing of criminal revision before the LHC, contending that Imran Khan allegedly incited the acts through media statements. However, the prosecution could not produce any objectionable or incriminating material to substantiate this claim, which led the LHC to reject this version as well. Subsequently, the state sought to rely on the statements of three new witnessesincluding PTI leaders Sadaqat Abbasi and Wasiq Qayyumas fresh evidence to support its third version of the conspiracy. "This final attempt too was found wanting and was expressly disbelieved by the ATC-I, Rawalpindi, which discharged the co-accused Bushra Imran through a well-reasoned order dated 20.08.2024. "The prosecution's continued failure to present coherent, consistent, and credible evidence after multiple opportunities clearly brings the case within the realm of further inquiry, making the petitioner entitled to the concession of post-arrest bail under Section 497(2) CrPC 1898," it said. The petition stated that despite the rejection of all three prosecutorial versions by various competent forums, the LHC on June 24 declined Imran's bail while relying solely on the statements of the two police officialsInspector Asmat Kamal and ASI Hassam Afzal. "These very statements, however, had already been judicially disbelieved in earlier proceedings where both pre-arrest and post-arrest bails were granted to the petitioner," it said. It said the reliance placed by the LHC on previously discarded and delayed police statements amounted to a clear inconsistency in judicial appreciation of evidence. "These contradictory views of the courts below, especially in a case where the only allegation is of abetment and conspiracy, further reinforce that the matter warrants deeper scrutiny and falls squarely within the parameters of further inquiry," it said. According to the petition, in the order, LHC attempted to justify the delay in the statements of the witnesses by relying on an explanation furnished by the prosecutor, who claimed that the information regarding abatement was promptly communicated and brought on police record on May 4, 2023. "Shockingly, this explanation had never been offered before any judicial forum neither during the proceedings of pre-arrest or post-arrest bails before the learned ATCs, nor during the remand hearings, nor even before the LHC during the remand hearing or the Supreme Court in earlier stages. "This new explanation appears for the first time in the impugned order, without any evidentiary foundation or prosecutorial assertion to support it. "The reliance placed on such a retrospective and unsubstantiated statement of the prosecutor constitutes a manifest error on the part of the learned division bench," it added. It said the LHC is inadvertently filling the lacunae left by the prosecutiona task clearly outside the scope of judicial discretion in bail matters and undermines the fairness of the reasoning applied in the impugned order. The petition stated that Imran Khan has been maliciously implicated in the instant case as part of a calculated and politically motivated design to prolong his incarceration and subject him to harassment, and tarnish his public image. It said the circumstances demonstrate that the petitioner's arrest was never genuinely required in the cases pertaining to May 9. This was evident from the police's conspicuous inaction over a prolonged period of fourteen months in implicating and arresting the Petitioner in this case. The petition said the police knew the whereabouts of the petitionersAdiala Jailbut made no meaningful attempt to effect his arrest. "This lack of urgency or interest on the part of the investigating agency strongly supports the inference that the arrest was not necessitated by the merits of the case, but was rather a tool of oppression, thereby further justifying the grant of post-arrest bail" The petition said Imran Khan was entitled to the grant of post-arrest bail on the well-established principle of consistency, as affirmed through various judgments of the apex court. "A critical and directly relevant bail order passed in favour of a co-accused, Mr. Ejaz Chaudhary, by [the SC] on May 2, 2025, during the pendency of the present bail matter before the [LHC], appears to have escaped the attention of the learned division bench. "The said order was rendered by a three-member bench headed by Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan, wherein post-arrest bail was granted to Mr Ejaz Chaudhary despite allegations of conspiracy concerning the events of 9th May. "In para 5 of the said judgment, this [SC] expressed concern over the prosecution's failure to justify the delay in recording the supplementary statement of the complainant "Further, in para 6, it was held that on a tentative assessment of the record, the case against the co-accused fell within the ambit of further inquiry under Section 497(2) CrPC 1898." The petition highlighted that the ATC-III in Lahore confirmed Imran's pre-arrest bail in two May 9 cases through a detailed order on March 1, 2024, followed by the grant of post-arrest bail in four additional cases on November 8, 204. "These orders, based on similar allegations and the same prosecutorial evidence, have not been set aside by any Superior Court and have attained finality." It said Imran Khan has already been granted bail in 21 criminal cases arising out of the May 9 incidents, all of which relied on substantially identical evidence. "These consistent judicial findings strongly support his entitlement to post-arrest bail on the ground of parity and further inquiry, particularly in the face of a case fabricated at the behest of political adversaries. "Furthermore, both [the LHC] and the [ATCs] at Lahore and Rawalpindi have, in multiple proceedings, recorded observations that cast serious doubt on the credibility of the prosecution's narrative," it said.


Express Tribune
19 hours ago
- Express Tribune
Energy-starved Pakistan's solar rush
Solar panels are now seen installed on the rooftops of houses across the country. Photo: AFP Pakistanis are increasingly ditching the national grid in favour of solar power, prompting a boom in rooftop panels and spooking a government weighed down by billions of dollars of power sector debt. The quiet energy revolution has spread from wealthy neighbourhoods to middle- and lower-income households as customers look to escape soaring electricity bills and prolonged power cuts. Down a cramped alley in Karachi, residents fighting the sweltering summer heat gather in Fareeda Saleem's modest home for something they never experienced before — uninterrupted power. "Solar makes life easier, but it's a hard choice for people like us," she says of the installation cost. Saleem was cut from the grid last year for refusing to pay her bills in protest over enduring 18-hour power cuts. A widow and mother of two disabled children, she sold her jewellery — a prized possession for women in Pakistan — and borrowed money from relatives to buy two solar panels, a solar inverter and battery to store energy, for Rs180,000. As temperatures pass 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), children duck under Saleem's door and gather around the breeze of her fan. Mounted on poles above homes, solar panels have become a common sight across the country of 240 million people, with the installation cost typically recovered within two to five years. Making up less than two percent of the energy mix in 2020, solar power reached 10.3 percent in 2024, according to the global energy think tank Ember. But in a remarkable acceleration, it more than doubled to 2 4 percent in the first five months of 2025, becoming the largest source of energy production for the first time. It has edged past gas, coal and nuclear electricity sources, as well as hydropower which has seen hundreds of millions of dollars of investment over the past decades. As a result, Pakistan has unexpectedly surged towards its target of renewable energy, making up 60 percent of its energy mix by 2030. Dave Jones, chief analyst at Ember, told AFP that Pakistan was "a leader in rooftop solar". Soaring fuel costs globally, coupled with demands from the International Monetary Fund to slash government subsidies, led successive administrations to repeatedly hike electricity costs. Prices have fluctuated since 2022 but peaked at a 155-percent increase and power bills sometimes outweigh the cost of rent. "The great solar rush is not the result of any government's policy push," Muhammad Basit Ghauri, an energy transition expert at Renewables First, told AFP. "Residents have taken the decision out of clear frustration over our classical power system, which is essentially based on a lot of inefficiencies." Pakistan sources most of its solar equipment from neighbouring China, where prices have dropped sharply, largely driven by overproduction and tech advancements. But the fall in national grid consumers has crept up on an unprepared government burdened by $8 billion of power sector debt, analysts say. Pakistan depends heavily on costly gas imports, which it sells at a loss to national energy providers. It is also tied into lengthy contracts with independent power producers, including some owned by China, for which it pays a fixed amount regardless of actual demand. A government report in March said the solar power increase has created a "disproportionate financial burden onto grid consumers, contributing to higher electricity tariffs and undermining the sustainability of the energy sector". Electricity sales dropped 2.8 percent year-on-year in June, marking a second consecutive year of decline. Last month, the government imposed a new 10-percent tax on all imported solar, while the energy ministry has proposed slashing the rate at which it buys excess solar energy from consumers. "The household solar boom was a response to a crisis, not the cause of it," said analyst Jones, warning of "substantial problems for the grid" including a surge during evenings when solar users who cannot store energy return to traditional power. The national grid is losing paying customers like businessman Arsalan Arif. A third of his income was spent on electricity bills at his Karachi home until he bought a 10-kilowatt solar panel for around 1.4 million rupees (around $4,900). "Before, I didn't follow a timetable. I was always disrupted by the power outages," he told AFP. Now he has "freedom and certainty" to continue his catering business. In the eastern city of Sialkot, safety wear manufacturer Hammad Noor switched to solar power in 2023, calling it his "best business decision", breaking even in 18 months and now saving 1 million rupees every month. The cost of converting Noor's second factory has now risen by nearly 1.5 million rupees under the new government tax.