PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz tweeted early Monday morning that her husband retired Captain Mohammad Safdar had been arrested by the police from their hotel in Karachi.
“Police broke my room door at the hotel I was staying at in Karachi and arrested Capt Safdar,” Maryam said via tweet.
According to Maryam, she was sleeping when the police allegedly “barged in”.
PTI minister Ali Zaidi, however, refuted her claim, saying “Maryam [is] once again lying that the hotel door was broken.”
Safdar is being kept at the Aziz Bhatti police station. He has been arrested a day after he raised slogans at the Quaid’s mausoleum before the Pakistan Democratic Movement’s (PDM) second power show at Bagh-i-Jinnah.
It is expected that Safdar will be presented before court some time today.
The arrest comes after a first information report (FIR) was registered against Maryam, Safdar and 200 others for violating the sanctity of the Quaid’s mausoleum. The complainant, Waqas Ahmed, alleged that the PML-N leaders, along with 200 of their followers, reached the Quaid’s grave where Safdar jumped over the grill surrounding it.
The complainant said that he tried to stop him from doing so but Safdar “got out of control” and started threatening him and his fellows that he would kill them. He added that Safdar later damaged government property before leaving the site with his followers.
“My complaint is that Safdar and his cohort violated the sanctity of the Quaid’s mausoleum and his grave. A case [should be] registered against him for raising political slogans inside the mausoleum complex, death threats against me and for damaging government property.”
