Pakistani ex-premier’s deputy arrested in Islamabad

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi was arrested on May 10, hours after the police apprehended PTI Secretary General Asad Umar as the authorities crack down on the party's leadership amid countrywide protests due to PTI Chairman Imran Khan's arrest.

People familiar with the matter said that Qureshi has been taken into custody for 15 days under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Ordinance, 1960, according to Geo.tv.

The people added that both — Qureshi and Umar — have been shifted to the Secretariat Police Station in the federal capital, with police trying to arrest PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry as well.

The PTI's top-tier leadership is being put behind bars, sources said, to ensure law and order as they are the ones calling the shots — may it be protests or other disruptions being caused in the country.

The protests are being held in remote and major cities alike as the party workers are agitated due to their chairman's arrest, with Balochistan, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Islamabad summoning the armed forces to ensure law and order.

Umar, also a close confidant of Khan, was arrested by the anti-terrorist squad (ATS) from the premises of the IHC — the same court from where the PTI chief was taken into custody.

The Islamabad police's ATS officials picked up Umar from outside the IHC Bar Room where he and other PTI leaders were preparing a plea to be filed file in the IHC seeking a meeting with Khan.

According to eyewitnesses, the PTI lawyers fought with the police to prevent Umar's arrest, but the law enforcers overpowered them and took the PTI leader away.

The former finance minister was booked in two cases registered against him and other PTI leaders following the protests that ensued after Khan's arrest.

The cases were registered in Islamabad's Tarnol and Aabpara police stations.

Qureshi, Senator Saifullah Sarwar Khan Nyazee, and Ghulam Sarwar Khan were also with Umar when the CTD men swooped on him.

All three leaders returned to the IHC's Bar Room after Umar was taken by the police.

The police also tried arresting Qureshi, however, the lawyers and other party workers thwarted the police from snatching the PTI vice chairman.

Umar's arrest prompted PTI leader Shireen Mazari to take to Twitter, where she registered her protest against his fellow's arrest.

"IHC premises 'fertile ground' for PTI leaders' arrest," Mazari tweeted.

She condemned Umar's arrest, saying "seems like the IHC area has become a fertile ground to illegally arrest PTI leaders".