Court Defers Indictment After Shahbaz Gill Arrives With Oxygen Support:
Court Defers Indictment After Shahbaz Gill Arrives With Oxygen Support
Shahbaz Gill, Imran Khan’s former chief of staff and a leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), was taken in an ambulance to the district and sessions courts in Islamabad on Friday.
Gill’s attorney asked the court to postpone hearings because his client is critically ill and his indictment in the sedition case is due soon.
He was tethered to the ambulance while inside the courthouse because he requires a constant supply of oxygen, which is only provided by ambulances.
Only an oxygen mask was fastened to his face when he arrived in the ambulance; no oxygen meter or monitor to display his vital signs was attached.
However, he was seen and heard coughing and shaking.
Later, on January 20, the court ordered him to appear and be charged.
Gill has been involved in a number of legal proceedings since making contentious remarks about the military establishment on a private television channel in July of last year.
On December 24, just before Punjab Chief Minister Parvez Elahi was set to face a no-confidence vote, he was discovered to have briefly vanished from the Services Hospital in Lahore.
Gill returned to the hospital after it became clear that Elahi would remain chief minister for some time.
He was previously transferred from Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail to Islamabad’s Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences after his health deteriorated.
The Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act of 2016 is divided into seven sections, and the Balochistan Police had also subpoenaed Gill in connection with a sedition case filed against him in Qila Abdullah.
A new case against him was filed in Karachi earlier this month for inciting the populace against a state institution.
A citizen named Muhammad Saeed filed the first information report against Gill at the Brigade police station for disparaging the late Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa.
Pavan Manzoor is an experienced content writer , editor and social media handler along with a track record of youth-oriented activities in Pakistan and abroad. She was selected as a fully-funded delegate as a leadership fellow in Turkey. She also led a team of 5 volunteers at the week-long Young Professionals Fellowship in Maldives. She is also a member of the Youth Standing Committee on Higher Education.
