: A court on Tuesday rejected a plea seeking physical remand of Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh in a land-grabbing case.
The court sent Sheikh into judicial custody while directing the anti-encroachment officials to submit the case challan at the next hearing.
Sheikh, who is also a PTI leader, has been under arrest for over a month for allegedly grabbing 25 acres of government land. He alleges that he was tortured and strangled in detention.
During the hearing, the court inquired from the investigation officer (IO) on why he held Sheikh by his collar.
The IO responded in the negative and said that he could only grab Sheikh’s shirt to save him as he was falling.
Sheikh’s lawyer maintained that the FIR against the politician was lodged by a tapedar and there is not a single private witness in the case.
“My client is being linked to land grabbers. The leader of the Opposition is not arrested without the Assembly speaker’s permission,” he said.
While giving arguments, the prosecutor said that a notice was served to Haleem after the registration of the case against him but he didn’t cooperate in the investigation. He requested the court to remand Haleem into police custody for investigating strong evidence against him.