PTI’s SM Qureshi arrested in eight more cases

LAHORE: Punjab Police on Sunday arrested Senior Vice President of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Shah Mahmood Qureshi in 8 more cases.

According to the details, a special team of Lahore Police reached Adiala Jail to take him into custody, where the former foreign minister is currently imprisoned in the May 9 cases.

The investigation team asked the court for permission to transfer Shah Mahmood Qureshi to Lahore, but the court rejected the request due to security concerns.

However, the court granted the PTI leader’s three-day physical remand on the request of the investigation team.

The police team recorded Shah Mahmood’s statement in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail. They will be produced in the Anti-Terrorism Court through video link.

On January 30, a special court established under the Official Secrets Act sentenced former Prime Minister Imran Khan and former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to 10 years in prison in the cipher case.

The cipher case concerns a diplomatic document that Imran never returned to the Federal Investigation Agency’s charge sheet. PTI claimed that the US has threatened to remove Imran from the post of Prime Minister in this document.

Imran Khan and Qureshi have been facing trial in Adiala Jail since last year for distorting the facts of the diplomatic cipher.

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The two PTI leaders were accused of conspiring to misuse the contents of the cipher to serve nefarious purposes.

Cipher case

The First Information Report (FIR) was filed on August 15 under the Official Secrets Act. It was registered on the complaint of the Home Secretary.

Former prime minister and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi were named in the report, while the names of former principal secretary Azam Khan and former planning minister Asad Umar are also included.

According to the report, action will also be taken against Azam Khan and Asad Umar after the authorities came to the conclusion that they were also involved in the misuse of classified documents.