Former Prime Minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf get together founder Imran Khan. File
| Picture Credit score: AP
An anti-terrorism court docket on Saturday (March 7, 2026) sentenced 47 Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leaders and supporters to 10 years imprisonment and a PKR 5,00,000 superb every in absentia for vandalism and violence in the course of the Might 9, 2023, protest.
The countrywide protest was launched by staff and leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) following the arrest of former Prime Minister and get together founder Imran Khan in Islamabad.
A bunch of protesters additionally tried to storm the Normal Headquarters, the seat of the military chief, in Rawalpindi, leading to vandalism of the properties. The case was registered on the RA Bazar Police Station, Rawalpindi, quickly after the incident.
The PTI supporters have been charged with arson, siege, vandalism, assaults on police, and damaging authorities property, particularly in reference to assaults on the GHQ gate, Hamza Camp, the Military Museum, and Sixth Street Metro Station.
The anti-terrorism court docket (ATC) Rawalpindi decide, Amjad Ali Shah, issued the decision in opposition to the 47 who had already been declared as proclaimed offenders.
The court docket discovered them responsible and sentenced every of them to 10 years imprisonment, together with a superb of PKR 5,00,000 per convict and the confiscation of their movable and immovable properties. Within the occasion of non-payment of the superb, the convicted accused will likely be required to serve extra imprisonment.
Among the many convicted PTI leaders are Omar Ayub Khan, Shibli Faraz, Shahbaz Gill, Zulfi Bukhari, Murad Saeed, Zartaj Gul, Hammad Azhar, Kanwal Shauzab, Sheikh Rashid Shafiq, Ejaz Khan Jazi, Shaukat Ali Bhatti, Usman Saeed Basra, Muhammad Ahmad Chattha, Rai Hassan Nawaz, and Rai Muhammad Murtaza, amongst others.
Based on the court docket’s written verdict, the convicted accused have been discovered concerned within the conspiracy behind the Might 9 incidents, with a Joint Investigation Group (JIT) figuring out them as key suspects within the planning of the violent protests.
The 47 people have been tried individually underneath Part 21 L of the Anti-Terrorism Act, as they’d been absent from court docket proceedings and have been declared proclaimed offenders.
The Might 9 GHQ assault case is a part of a broader prosecution through which a complete of 118 accused, together with PTI founder Mr. Khan and former Overseas Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, have been additionally indicted, with expenses formally framed in opposition to all 118 in December 2024. Mr. Khan is at present in Adiala Jail, going through a number of circumstances that have been instituted in opposition to him after his authorities was eliminated in April 2022.
Printed – March 07, 2026 04:55 pm IST