High ranking Sindh police officials including Inspector General (IG) Mushtaq Mahar, Additional Inspector General (AIG) Karachi, AIG Special Branch Imran Yaqoob, and several Deputy Inspector Generals (DIG) of police, have submitted requests for leave on Tuesday after they were allegedly pressurized to register a case against Capt(retd) Safdar on Monday.

Police officials claimed that the police high command was “ridiculed and mishandled” leading to the demoralization of all ranks of the Sindh Police.

Safdar was detained by the Sindh police on Monday after a case was registered, on the complaints of PTI workers, against 200 people including Maryam Nazawz, Capt Safdar, and other PML-N leaders at the Brigade Police Station in Karachi for violating the sanctity of Mazar-e-Quaid and chanting slogans while he visited Quaid's mausoleum with Maryam Nawaz.

The case was registered under the Quaid-i-Azam’s Mazar (Protection and Maintenance) Ordinance of 1971, which explicitly forbids political activities within the premises of the mausoleum.

Safdar was granted bail on the same day by a judicial magistrate in Karachi.

The leadership of PML-N was in Karachi to attend a rally held on Sunday under the banner of the Pakistan Democratic Movement.

The controversy:

After Safdar's arrest was confirmed by Maryam, Sindh's Education Minister Saeed Ghani denied any involvement of the provincial government in the arrest. Saeed took to Twitter to issue a clarification and said that PPP didn't issue any directive to the police to arrest Safdar.

"What Capt(retd) Safdar did on Mizar-e-Quaid was inappropriate but the way he was arrested in condemnable. Safdar was not arrested on the directives of the Sindh government."

He also alleged that Safdar's arrest was a conspiracy to dismantle the oppositions' resistance collective PDM.

PPP's senior leader Raja Parvez Ashraf, while addressing a joint press conference of PDM leaders, said that PPP's chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has asked Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah to investigate the matter and submit a report. Raja Parvez Ashraf also alleged that 'police took action under someone's pressure'.

However, Sindh police on Twitter clarified that Safdar's arrest was in accordance with the law:

"The arrest of Capt(rt) Safdar was done according to law and the investigation will be impartial. Due process will be followed in all respect."

The aforementioned tweet was deleted soon after - only to reappear again thirty minutes later and was deleted again.

Meanwhile, Safdar, while speaking to the media in Lahore today, said that he wanted to send a message to those who had called Fatima Jinnah a traitor by raising slogans for Madar-i-Millat.

It's worth mentioning that PPP's founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, while campaigning for Ayub during the presidential election in December 1964 against Fatima Jinnah, had accused Ms Jinnah of being a CIA agent.