A division bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) summoned the Punjab prosecutor general, station house officer and investigation officer (IO) of Defence-A Police Station for Friday. The officials were summoned on Ayesha Iqbal’s petition, daughter of former MPA Ahad Malik, against her physical remand and insertion of kidnapping sections in a FIR registered against her on the complaint of her Filipino maid. An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Tuesday had sentenced that she should be taken into police custody for 10 days and she challenged it before the LHC through her counsel Azam Nazir Tarar. Ayesha’s counsel submitted that a false criminal case was registered against her at Defence-A Police station under section 365 PPC on the complaint of Lory Docog with allegations that over a dispute, the accused kidnapped her son, Joseph and trespassed into her house. She submitted that she was apprehending arrest in the false and politically motivated case surrendered before the sessions’ court by filing a petition for a pre-arrest bail along with her 19-years-old daughter Mahnoor. The petition was placed before a sessions’ judge who granted her an interim bail on September 28 and adjourned the case until October 3 when the IO informed the court that an offence under section 365-A of PPC had been added to the case. Tarar said that her client and her daughter came out of the court premises when she was arrested by the police and pushed, dragged and maltreated them and as a result, they were injured. Her counsel immediately informed the additional sessions judge (ASJ) about the incident who summoned the IO. A police official said that the petitioner and her daughter were arrested in another case under section 506 of PPC. At this, the ASJ referred the matter to the ATC to proceed with the matter. She submitted that the ATC judge had sent her into police custody for 10 days which was illegal. She pleaded that the court should set aside her remand order as her fundamental rights were violated without lawful authority. She further prayed that the insertion of section 365-A in the FIR should be declared illegal, based on malafide intentions and without lawful authority.
