Former Pakistan Minister Qureshi Arrested Again After Being Released From Prison

Qureshi, 66, served as Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Minister from 2018 to 2022 under Khan's regime.

ISLAMABAD: Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the former foreign minister and vice-chairman of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party was arrested again on Tuesday, moments after being released from a prison in Rawalpindi on the orders of a top court. Qureshi, 66, served as Pakistan's Foreign Affairs Minister from 2018 to 2022 under Khan's regime. The Islamabad High Court on Tuesday ordered Qureshi's release after he submitted an undertaking affirming that he would abstain from creating agitation and inciting workers, according to Geo TV.

However, moments after his release from Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail, Punjab Police re-arrested the former minister, the report said. Qureshi was among the top Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders arrested after violent protests erupted following Khan's arrest on May 9. Khan's supporters vandalised a dozen military installations, including the Lahore Corps Commander house, Mianwali airbase, the ISI building in Faisalabad and also torched sensitive defence installations.

The Army headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi was also attacked by the mob for the first time. Like Qureshi, Khan's close aide and former minister for human rights Shireen Mazari was also re-arrested on Monday. Mazari quit the party and announced her retirement from active politics on Tuesday.
She made the announcement after she was released following her arrest for the fourth time since May 12 when she was picked from her residence by police and sent to jail.

Mazari has been a vocal critic of Pakistan's military and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's government. On Tuesday, Fayyazul Hassan Chohan, another key leader in Khan's party, said at a news conference that he is quitting the party over what he termed was Khan's 'politics of confrontation with the state and the military.'

Meanwhile, Khan has termed his party leaders' exodus as "forced divorce," after Mazari's announcement. "We had all heard about forced marriages in Pakistan but for PTI a new phenomenon has emerged, forced divorces," Khan tweeted. "I commend and salute all the senior members who are resisting the extreme pressure to quit the party," Khan said in another tweet.

Khan, 70, who is facing more than 100 cases ranging from corruption to terrorism, said he sympathises will everyone who were pressurised to leave the party. An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan granted Khan bail till June 8 in eight cases related to violence that erupted at the Judicial Complex here in March.

The cases were registered in different police stations of Islamabad against the former prime minister after clashes erupted between police and his supporters when the PTI party chief appeared before a court in the Judicial Complex on March 18. The clashes erupted when Khan attended a much-awaited hearing in the Toshakhana corruption case.

The Toshakhana is a department under the administrative control of the Cabinet Division and stores precious gifts given to rulers, parliamentarians, bureaucrats, and officials by heads of other governments and states and foreign dignitaries. Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, was ousted from power in April last year after losing a no-confidence vote in his leadership, which he alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia, China and Afghanistan.