Another arrest warrant issued for Omar Ayub in May 9 case

SARGODHA, JAN 23 (DNA): Legal woes of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders continue to pile up as an anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Thursday issued a bailable arrest warrant for National Assembly Opposition Leader Omar Ayub over failure to appear before the court in a case related to the May 9 riots.

Confirming the development, Ayub’s lawyer Sajid Mehmood said that the NA opposition leader’s medical certificate was submitted to the Sargodha court and he would appear in the case on January 30.

The issuance of the arrest warrant comes against the backdrop of multiple cases registered against PTI’s Ayub, Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Malik Ahmed Khan Bachar, MNA Bilal Ejaz, Sanam Javaid and Aliya Hamza and 300 party workers at Mianwali’s Kamar Mashani and Musa Khel police stations.

The cases involve allegations of vandalising Pakistan Air Force’s installations and government property.

The latest arrest warrant come day after an ATC in Faisalabad issued non-bailable arrest warrants against Ayub and Senate Opposition Leader Shibli Faraz in another May 9 related case.

The party’s leadership, including its founder Imran Khan along with senior leaders such as Shah Mahmood Qureshi and others, remains embroiled in a plethora of legal cases owing to the May 9 incident which saw military installations — including Rawalpindi’s General Headquarters (GHQ), Lahore’s Corps Commander’s House — being vandalised by an angry mob following Khan’s arrest in a graft case.

The riots have since been blamed on the PTI by both the then-Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government, the caretaker government and the current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s administration — an allegation vehemently denied by the former ruling party.

In the aftermath of the violent incidents across the country, the individuals involved in the May 9 riots were tried by military courts which handed down stern punishments from two to 10 years to a total of 85 “culprits”.

The issue of the May 9 riots has also been made a key issue in its ongoing negotiations with the government as the party has demanded the formation of a judicial commission to probe the riots.

As per the PTI’s written ‘Charter of Demands’, the commission — the first of the two with the second one being tasked to probe events surrounding the party’s November 2024 protest in Islamabad — is to “conduct an in-depth inquiry into the legality of the events that led to the arrest of Khan”.