LAHORE: A local court in Lahore on Sunday granted the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) a two-day physical remand of former deputy speaker of the Punjab Assembly Dost Muhammad Mazari in a case related to alleged land encroachment.
A day after being arrested by the ACE, Mazari was arraigned before a judicial magistrate’s court today.
During the course of proceedings, ACE Punjab’s lawyer requested the physical remand of Mazari to complete the investigation.
After approving the remand, the local court directed ACE Punjab to present the Punjab Assembly lawmaker in court on Tuesday.
Talking to journalists, Mazari said that he was being subjected to political victimisation. Rejecting the allegations levelled against him, Mazari maintained that he was being punished for standing with the Constitution.
“I will stand by the Constitution,” he added.
Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz, while commenting on Mazari's arrest, claimed that the provincial government took him into custody at the behest of PTI Chairman Imran Khan.
“The Punjab government is playing the role of a facilitator in the victimisation of political opponents,” he added. The PML-N leader went on to say that the summary of Khan’s politics is “victimisation of opponents, chaos, and anarchy”.
Mazari is being targeted by the provincial government for ensuring the supremacy of the Constitution and the law, he added.
On Saturday, ACE Punjab arrested the former deputy speaker of the provincial assembly in an alleged land encroachment case.
Confirming the arrest, his cousin Shabab Mazari said that the disgruntled PTI MPA was arrested when visiting his ailing grandfather Balakh Sher Mazari at a private hospital.
Speaking to Geo News about the deputy speaker's arrest, PTI's dissident Member of the National Assembly Sardar Riaz Mehmood Khan Mazari said: "My father Balakh Sher Mazari has been unwell for 15 days. Dost Mazari came to visit my father at the hospital."
The MNA revealed that ACE officials came to arrest Mazari at the hospital without any warrant or first information report (FIR).
"Dost Mazari is being targeted in political vengeance," Riaz Mazari said.
Mazari's arrest comes a day after the Lahore High Court called out ACE Punjab for becoming a "political tool" for its recent actions against Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah.
The remarks were passed by the LHC's Rawalpindi bench when it heard the case filed by the minister against his arrest warrants issued by ACE Punjab. The director-general of ACE Punjab, Nadeem Sarwar, was also present in the court.
“Your institution has become a political tool. One [DG] comes and forms a case, another (DG) comes and finishes that case,” observed the court. It also slammed the official for obtaining Sanaullah’s arrest warrants by making a false statement.