The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Thursday issued its detailed verdict on the bail granted to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Rana Sanaullah in the drug trafficking case against him, saying that “political victimisation in the country is an open secret”.

Opposition parties have been accusing the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of cracking down on opposition leaders in what they call is “selective accountability”, alleging that members of the PML-N and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) are arrested “only because the government cannot tolerate dissent”.

Among other opposition leaders’ arrests, Sanaullah’s detention in the case against him was also termed as “political victimisation” by opposition parties as they accused the government of being unable to take criticism.

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The nine-page judgement issued Thursday was authored by Justice Chaudhry Mushtaq Ahmad of the LHC, and gave some weight to the “political victimsation” argument made by the petitioner.

“In the context of the petitioner being a vocal political leader of [the main] opposition party, this aspect of the case could not be ignored as political victimisation in our country is an open secret,” the court said.

It questioned in its judgement as to why the former provincial minister’s physical remand had not been sought by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) to investigate the allegations against him, and why were the formal documentary proceedings of the seizure of narcotics not conducted at the time of arrest.

“Why a sample of only 20 grams of the heroin recovered was sent for testing when the seized quantity was as high as 15 kilogrammes,” the court questioned.

In the judgement, it was reasoned that from the facts of the case, there needed to be further investigation of the charges against Sanaullah. However, since “the co-accused in the case were granted bail by a trial court, and their bail was not challenged by the prosecution in the high court”, it would be unfair to not allow Sanaullah the same recourse.