Imran Khan appears before anti-terrorism court in Islamabad

By Islamuddin Sajid 

ISLAMABAD (AA) - A court in Pakistan on Monday extended the pre-arrest bail of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in a terrorism case until Sept. 20.

Khan appeared before the anti-terrorism court in the capital Islamabad that earlier granted him interim bail on Sept. 1.

According to his lawyer, Babar Awan, the court adjourned the case until Sept. 20 after the prosecution counsel sought more time for arguments.

Last month, the same court granted pre-arrest bail to Khan in a case registered against him for allegedly threatening police officers and a judicial official

during a rally in Islamabad. However, later the Islamabad police added four more provisions related to the law and order situation.

In his speech during a rally on Aug. 20, Khan said he will take legal action against the capital Islamabad’s police chief, and a judicial official who ordered two-day physical remand of his chief of staff Shehbaz Gill.

Gill is facing sedition charges for remarks that allegedly aimed to incite mutiny within Pakistan’s powerful military.

On Thursday, Islamabad High Court also announced to indict Khan in a contempt of court case on Sept. 22.

Since his ouster from power in a no-confidence vote in April, Khan has staged a series of anti-government rallies and called for early elections, which are otherwise due in late 2023.

Khan’s international telethon for flood victims

On Sunday night, Khan held another international telethon to collect funds for over 33 million flood affectees across the country.

Criticizing the government in a tweet, Khan said the “imported government” stooped to new lows last night when it tried to blackout the telethon for fundraising.

“This shows how petrified they are of our rising popularity amongst the nation. Also, they know no one trusts them with their money given their record of loot & plunder,” he said, adding: “Despite all this, we managed to raise Rs5.2 billion in just 2 hours.”

Since June 14, over 1,400 people lost their lives while 12,722 have been injured in the rain and flood-related incidents across the country.

Currently, one-third of the country is under water as the massive rains and melting glaciers have caused the country’s main Indus River to overflow, inundating vast swaths of plains, and farms.

Destructive rains and floods have also washed away hundreds of thousands of houses, bridges, roads, and buildings across the South Asian nuclear country, which is already grappling with a political and economic turmoil.

So far, over 1.73 million houses have been damaged, including 565,878 completely destroyed, while 754,708 livestock have perished.

Over 33 million of the country's approximately 220 million population have been affected by the raging floods, causing a staggering loss of billions of dollars in damages to an already weakened infrastructure.