The engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza was taken to the ‘preventive custody’ of his academy in Jhelum, police said Tuesday, a day after reports of his arrest.
According to Jhelum’s deputy commissioner, Muhammad Meesam Abbas, and the police officer of the District Ahmed Mohiyuddin, Mirza’s was arrested under section 3 of the Public Order maintenance ordinance.
According to section 3 of the MPO, the authorities have the power to arrest and detain the suspects to prevent “any person from acting in any way harmful to public safety” or to maintain public order.
Police clarified that this so -called arrest is erected as “preventive detention” and no criminal charge has been imposed against him.
According to the Punjab police, the statements made by Mirza in a certain viral video could cause sectarian violence, which makes their detention under the MPO “inevitable.”
He is detained for 30 days by order of the deputy commissioner of Jhelum, Syed Maysam Abbas, according to the District Police. The “Islamic Academy” of Mirza in Jhelum has also been sealed, police added.
The express trustee I was able to contact some acquaintances from Mirza, who declared that Mirza had agreed to enter custody if that meant avoiding violence.
Read: Religious scholarly engineer Muhammad Ali Mirza arrested in Jhelum
The details about the case are scarce, but what we know is that on Sunday, a group of religious figures met with the attached commission of Jhelum and filed a written complaint that demanded an action against the “controversial statements” that Mirza made in that video.
Mirza’s first meeting with the law was in May 2020, when he was accused of accusations of making derogatory comments about other religious scholars. He was later released on bail.
In 2023, Mirza was involved in another controversy with a blasphemia charge against him in April of that year.
Mirza has survived three murder attempts in 2019, 2021 and 2023. In 2023, a Madrasa student broke into the Mirza Armed Research Academy with a knife. Tehreek-E-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) had also offered a reward of RS500,000 on Mirza’s head.
