Islamabad ATC remands Mohsin Baig’s two household staffers in police custody until tomorrow

An Islamabad anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Thursday sent two household staffers of media personality Mohsin Jamil Baig on a one-day physical remand in police custody in a case registered against their employer for allegedly attacking Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officers and injuring one of them.

The case was registered yesterday at Margalla police station following a raid by an FIA team at Baig’s residence in Islamabad, during which Baig had allegedly shot at and roughed up members of the agency’s team.

According to the FIA, the raid was conducted on the complaint of Communications Minister Murad Saeed, who had registered a first information report (FIR) against Baig at a cybercrime reporting centre of the agency in Lahore. The FIR said Baig had “assassinated” Saeed’s character by using “immoral and abusive language” in a talk show.

When the matter of Baig’s alleged attack on the FIA team was taken up by ATC Judge Muhammad Ali Warraich today, Margalla police produced two of his arrested household staff, Ashfaq and Zulfiqar, before him.

Police informed the judge that Ashfaq and Zulfiqar were present during the FIA’s raid on Baig’s residence and faced allegations of firing at the officials.

Police requested the court to grant them a three-day physical remand of the two for further investigation and the recovery of weapons.

The lawyer representing the two household staffers, Shahbaz Khosa, contested the request, saying that his clients were not involved in the first case registered against Baig with the FIA.

“They are only household employees and police arrested them as well,” he said.

The judge, however, remanded the two in police custody for a day.

During today’s proceedings, lawyer Khosa moved an application seeking permission to meet Baig.

At that, the court asked him who wanted to meet the suspect.

“Only his counsel and wife can meet [him] and no one else,” the court stated.

It granted permission to Baig’s wife, Shehla Mustafa, and lawyer Khosa to meet the suspect.

Moreover, the Margalla SHO denied having arrested Baig’s son when Khosa said that he, too, had been apprehended and police was supposed to produce him before the court.

Cases challenged

Separately, Mustafa filed two petitions in the Islamabad High Court today, challenging both the cases — first one registered by Murad Saeed with the FIA and the second by police for attacking FIA officials — against Baig and asking the court to quash both FIRs.

The petition challenging the case registered with Margalla police stated that during the incident at Baig’s residence, he saw some unidentified men in civil dress fighting with guards deployed outside the house and trying to trespass it.

He then went outside with a licensed pistol to “guard against an assault on his house but was taken hostage and was tortured brutally by the FIA team and police officials”, the petition said, adding that Baig was “illegally detained” by those persons and his “house was subjected to trespass by some unknown personnel under the guise of” the case registered against him with the FIA.

According to the petition, Baig was arrested on the spot and his son had also been missing.

“The petitioner does not know where the police official[s] and FIA team have kept and concealed him,” it read.

It also mentioned the arrest of Zulfiqar and Ashfaq.

The petition said the registration of the FIR with the FIA and consequential proceedings “are a result of mala fide of facts and mala fide of law” and the “political victimisation of the petitioner’s family”.

It also refers to yesterday’s judgement of a sessions court that had declared the raid at Baig’s house illegal and said the “misconduct of the [Margalla] SHO is quite floating on the surface of the record”.

On the basis of this ruling, the petition argued that the continuance of the FIR registered at Margalla police station “will be an abuse of the process of law and courts, and proceedings on basis of the FIR shall be nothing but harassment and blackmailing of the petitioner and her family”.

Terming the allegations levelled against Baig “false, frivolous, vexatious, fallacious, baseless, concocted and fabricated”, the petition stated that if the FIR was not quashed, Mustafa and her family would “suffer irreparable and substantial loss of their body, mind and reputation”.

Taking a similar stance in another petition, Mustafa also moved the high court to quash the case registered against Baig with the FIA.

The petition stated that the case was registered in a “manner that is brazenly tainted with mala fide”, and neither was Baig issued any notices in this regard.

It also urged the court to direct the respondents, which include the FIA and the Federation of Pakistan, to refrain from harassing, threatening, humiliating, arresting or intimidating Baig.

The petition further requested the court that the respondents be directed not to take any “adverse action” against Baig until the disposal of this plea, and that during its pendency, the operation of the impugned FIR be suspended.