OKARA: Sahiwal AntiTerrorism Court (ATC) Judge Zahid Mahmood Ghaznavi, accepting a police request, granted physical remand of 41 arrested workers of the PTI, sending them back to Okara district jail for identification parade.

These workers were arrested following violent protests after the arrest of PTI chief Imran Khan on May 9 and were kept at Okara district jail.

Earlier, 25 of the PTI workers were produced in Section 30 Court of Judicial Magistrate (JM) Abrar Ali Khan that turned down the police request to sent these detainees for identification parade, citing lack of jurisdiction because of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

A five-member legal aid team of the PTI had filed 41 writ petitions in the court of Justice Ali Zia Bajwa at the Lahore High Court which had summoned the Okara DC in person on May 18.

However, the DC withdrew the detention ordersissued on May 17 under The Maintenance of The Public Order Ordinance, 1960.

The LHC had then ordered release of the all detainees as detention orders were withdrawn.

The legal aid team headed by Insaf Lawyers Forum President Mirza Zulifqar Ali, along with the team`s senior counsels Ali Adnan Qureshi and Syed Arshad Abdi, said that on May 17 Okara police were legally bound to release these detainees, but they were taken to Hafizabad, allegedly to implicate them in other cases.

The PTI lawyers said, after Hafizabad police did not agree with the Okara police plan, 25 of the party workers were presented in Section 30 court of Okara, while remaining 16 before judicial magistrates at Dipalpur and Renala tehsil courts.

However, the presiding officers of the courts denied the police request for their judicial remand as the Section 30 magistrates had no jurisdiction to entertain the cases registered under the ATA.