LAHORE: A review board of the Lahore High Court (LHC) has rejected the Punjab Home Department’s request for extension in detention of Saad Hussain Rizvi, leader of proscribed Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).
The decision was announced in a closed-door hearing by the provincial review board. Justice Malik Shahzad Ahmad, Justice Alia Neelum and Justice Sadaqat Ali Khan heard the request by the Punjab Home Department seeking an extension in the TLP chief’s detention.
A large contingent of police was present at the entry and exit gates of the LHC when Saad was presented before the court. The TLP chief was showered with rose petals by hundreds of TLP workers when he disembarked from the police van.
Talking to a private newspaper, Saad’s legal counsel, Advocate Burhan Moazzam Malik said there were still “five to seven days left of detention”. When questioned regarding bail, he responded that it depended on whether the police arrested Saad in a different case or not.
Saad Rizvi, son of the late Khadim Hussain Rizvi, was arrested on April 12 over allegations that he had incited his followers to take the law into their own hands.
The party had been pressing the government for the expulsion of the French ambassador to Pakistan ever since blasphemous caricatures of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) were published in France.
As the Feb 16 deadline neared, the government had expressed its inability to implement the agreement and had sought more time. The TLP had then agreed to delay its protest by two-and-a-half months to April 20.
A week prior to the deadline, Saad, in a video message, had asked TLP workers to be ready to launch a long march if government failed to meet the deadline. The move had prompted the government to arrest him on April 12.
The next day, police registered an FIR against the TLP chief under sections of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Within the next few hours, protesters took to the streets in Lahore and blocked the Grand Trunk Road on a number of points. The government had subsequently banned the TLP following the violent protests and sit-ins it staged across the country.
