Shahbaz Gill Was Charged With Another Offence, Driver's Wife Arrested.

PTI leader Shahbaz Gill was charged with another offence (disappearing evidence and giving false information), while the wife and brother-in-law of his driver were also arrested on Thursday in a case related to allegedly abetting mutiny and sedition.

Capital police officers told the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) - 'causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender' - had been added to the FIR registered against Mr. Gill.

The development comes two days after Mr. Gill was arrested on charges of sedition and inciting the public against the state institutions, following his controversial remarks about the army on the news channel. Mr. Gill's driver/assistant, Izhar, was with him at the time of his arrest at Banigala Chowk in Islamabad and claimed he had been subjected to violence during the episode.

Officers said Mr. Gill possessed his mobile phone at the time of the arrest, but its disappearance was noticed when the investigators came to collect it to send it to the FIA for forensic test and recover data.

Instead, a feature phone (the one with button-based inputs and a small non-touch display) was found with him instead of a smartphone, the officers said. On inquiry, Mr. Gill replied that he left his smartphone at Banigala, though investigators believed he was hiding the truth.

They believed Mr. Gill had either left his smartphone in his vehicle during the arrest or thrown it away somewhere else and now the mobile was in the custody of his driver.

The investigators also inquired about the place from where Mr. Gill appeared in the news programme via an audio call and inquired about the script from which he was read. However, while the PTI leader disclosed the location from where he appeared in the bulletin, he denied reading from any script. However, the investigators insisted either Mr. Gill was reading from written material or it was recorded audio.

In the FIR registered against Mr. Izhar and others, police said Mr. Gill - who has been remanded in police custody - revealed during interrogation that he had given his mobile phone, which contained considerable matter regarding the case against him, to Mr. Izhar, at the time of his arrest.

The FIR said he told police that Mr. Izhar still had his mobile and was living at his in-laws' residence.

Following this revelation, a special raiding party was constituted and sent to the house where Mr. Izhar was staying at 1:40am on Thursday, the FIR said.

It said Mr...