FIR Against Capt Safdar Declared False by Police

On Monday, the first information report (FIR) lodged against retired Captain Muhammad Safdar, Maryam Nawaz’s husband and leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), over allegations of violating the sanctity of the mausoleum of the founder of Pakistan, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, has been declared as false by police in the charge sheet which was submitted to Karachi court. 

Leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Haleem Adil Shaikh’s nephew named Waqas Khan had reportedly registered the complaint against Safdar, who, the interrogation report stated, did not join the investigation. The report also said that no veracity of the claims made by Waqas Khan developed during the probe which proved that when the claimed offense took place at the mausoleum, the complainant was not present.

Maryam Nawaz, the Vice President of PML-N, and her husband Captain Safdar were staying at a hotel in Karachi for the anti-government rally of Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) conducted in the city on October 18, when police barged into their hotel room and took Safdar under custody a day after the rally. 

Safdar, however, was bailed against a guarantee of Rs 100,000 hours later. 

Later on, the Sindh government alleged that the provincial police was forced by the federal government to take out the arrest in an attempt to create a split among the eleven parties comprising the PDM, the anti-government alliance which is led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). 

As per the FIR, Safdar and Maryam, along with a group of their supporters created a disturbance and chanted raging political slogans inside the mausoleum of the Quaid, thus violating its sacredness. Also, they were inculpated of intimidating people. 

Earlier, in the previous charge sheet, discrepancies were pointed out by the prosecution. The prosecution had noted that the investigation officer ignored to record the statements of the witnesses present at the spot when the offense occurred. 

According to the prosecution, the investigation officer was not given the required approval by his senior officers before he submitted the charge sheet, failing both - to attach the mausoleum board administration officer’s complaint and record his statement. 

Nevertheless, an amended new charge sheet was approved by the prosecution later on. It said that if the complaint is passed down through the concerned SHO on the request of the administration of the mausoleum, under the 1971 protection and maintenance ordinance of the Quaid-e-Azam’s Mazar, the offenses alleged by the complainant would be tried. 

Arif Sitai, deputy public prosecutor, and Zainab Hamirani, district public prosecutor, penned down in the scrutiny that they supported the investigation officer in his conclusion that no evidence was available to form the offenses and that the report was rightly presented under false class.