• Lawyer says that Ayub’s medical certificate presented to the court.
• Na opposition leader appears in court on January 30.
• PTI’s Sanam Javaid, Aliya Hamza others named in several cases.

Sargodha: Legal woes of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders continue to pour in as an anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Thursday issued a warrant of arrest for National Assembly opposition leader Omar Ayub over failure to appear before the court in court A case related to the May 9 riots.

Confirming the development, Ayub’s lawyer Sajid Mehmood said the NA opposition leader’s medical certificate was submitted to the Sargodha court and he would appear in the case on January 30.

The issuance of the arrest warrant comes against the backdrop of several cases registered against PTI’s Ayub, Punjab Assembly Opposition Leader Malik Ahmed Khan Bachar, MNA Bilal Ejaz, Sanam Javaid and Aliya Hamza and 300 party workers at Mianwali’s Kamar Mashani and Musa Khel police stations.

The cases involve allegations of vandalism of Pakistan Air Force installations and government property.

The latest arrest warrant comes a day after an ATC in Faisalabad issued non-available warrants against Ayub and Senate Opposition Leader Shibli Faraz in another May 9-related case.

The party’s leadership, including its founder Imran Khan along with senior leaders like Shah Mahmood Qureshi and others, remains embroiled in a plethora of legal cases over the May 9 incident that saw military installations – including Rawalpindi’s General Headquarters (GHQ), Lahore’s Corps Commander’s house – was vandalized by an angry mob after Khan’s arrest in a graft case.

The insurgents have since been blamed on the PTI by both the then Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) government, the caretaker government and current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s administration—a claim denied by the former ruling party.

In the wake of the violent incidents across the country, those involved in the May 9 riots were tried by military courts, handing out prison sentences ranging from two to 10 years to a total of 85 “guilty”.

The issue of the May 9 riots has also been made a central issue in its ongoing negotiations with the government, as the party has demanded a judicial commission to investigate the riots.

According to the PTI’s written ‘charter of demands’, the Commission—the first of the two with the second tasked to investigate events surrounding the party’s November 2024 protest in Islamabad—is to “conduct an in-depth investigation into the legality of the Events that led to the arrest of Khan”.