A judicial magistrate on Saturday remanded Khalid Khawaja, a former official of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), into custody for three days for “distributing hate material and carrying banned literature”.
The magistrate also directed the investigation officer to produce Khawaja in the court on January 30. Sub-Inspector Ghulam Mustafa, who is investigating the case, failed to produce the hate material seized from Khawaja in the court during the hearing. Later, he sought time and then produced the material in the court. Aabpara Police Station House Officer Safeer Bhatti said that police had seized a book titled Fatw-e-Rasheedia and other hate material from Khawaja. The police had arrested Khawaja on Friday and shifted him to an undisclosed location before registering a case against him under Section 295A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
Khawaja was reportedly helping the district administration and Jamia Hafsa management settle the issue of a madrassa building on an encroached land. He was also reportedly in contact with the families of ‘missing’ people and helping them arrange press conferences and protests in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. In a related development, Amna Masood Khwaja, the chief coordinator at the Islamic Centre for Research and Defence of Human Rights, told a press conference that secret agencies had put people’s lives at risk. Khalid Khawaja’s wife also accompanied her. She termed Khawaja’s arrest ‘illegal’ and demanded his release. |