New Case Against Imran Khan For Violating Pak Ban On Public Gatherings

Pakistan police has registered another case against former prime minister Imran Khan and top leaders of his Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party for violating a ban on public gatherings in the national capital, it emerged on Tuesday.

The case was registered at the Aabpara police station of Islamabad on Monday and the party leadership was held responsible for violating Section 144 in the city when Khan addressed a protest gathering on August 20.

Apart from 69-year-old Khan, several PTI leaders have been nominated in the FIR.

Khan had addressed the rally in Islamabad's F-9 park on Saturday to show solidarity with his close aide Shahbaz Gill who was arrested on August 9 for passing remarks against the powerful army.

According to the FIR, the police had made announcements via loud speakers that Section 144 had been imposed in the city and a ban had been imposed on rallies.

However, the rally went on, the PTI leaders turned a deaf ear to the police and led the supporters to the F-9 park, all the while sloganeering on loud speakers.

Earlier in the day, a three-member bench of the Islamabad High Court, headed by Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and comprising Justice Babar Sattar and Justice Miangul Hassan Aurangzeb, issued a show-cause notice to Khan and summoned him on August 31 in contempt proceedings initiated against him for passing controversial remarks against a female judge at the rally here.

Khan had threatened to file cases against Islamabad's inspector general of police and deputy inspector general of police and declared: "We won't spare you." He then warned additional district and sessions judge Zeba Chaudhry, who had approved two-day physical remand of Gill's on the request of Islamabad Police, that she would also face dire consequences.

Last week, Khan was booked under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act (punishment for acts of terrorism), according to the copy of the first information report.

Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, has been targeting powerful institutions, including the Pakistan Army, since his government was toppled in April.

He has dared the authorities to arrest him after Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah threatened to detain him in the case.

Meanwhile, Gill's problems were not over as police registered another case against him for possessing unlicensed weapons, after his residence at Parliament Lodges in the capital was raided in his presence.

A pistol, a satellite phone, wallets, ATM cards and some other documents were the items seized from his residence.

The political temperature in the country has been high since April - when Khan was ousted from the prime minister's office. Since then, he has been rallying supporters against the government and political matters are being regularly taken up with courts.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)