ISLAMABAD: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Islamabad on Saturday sent former Gilgit-Baltistan chief minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) regional president Khalid Khurshid Khan to jail on judicial remand in a case related to the November 26 protest.
ATC Judge Abul Hasanat Muhammad Zulqarnain heard the case after police formally showed Khurshid’s arrest in the protest-related case registered at Aabpara Police Station.
Police sought a 30-day physical remand of the former chief minister for investigation. However, the court rejected the request and ordered that he be sent to jail on judicial remand.
Khurshid was taken into custody on October 11 from the Speaker House in Peshawar, along with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Babar Saleem Swati and several others, according to the PTI’s official social media account.
Following his reported detention, Khurshid’s son, Hanifullah, filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court seeking his father’s recovery and the preservation of CCTV footage from the Speaker House.
The petition named the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa IGP, the capital city police officer and other relevant authorities as respondents.
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The petitioner maintained that unidentified individuals had taken his father from the Speaker House at around 2am and alleged that police were reluctant to register a case over the incident.
In December 2024, an anti-terrorism court in Gilgit-Baltistan sentenced Khurshid to 34 years in prison and imposed a fine of Rs600,000 in a case involving allegations that he had threatened security institutions during a public gathering.
Khurshid was elected to the Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly from Astore district on a PTI ticket in the 2020 general elections and subsequently became chief minister.
In July 2023, the Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Court disqualified him from holding public office over allegations that he had obtained a licence from the GB Bar Council using a fraudulent educational degree. The ruling ended his tenure as chief minister and triggered a political realignment in the region.