A magistrate is Islamabad Saturday issued the arrest warrants for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan.

According to reports, a magistrate in the Margalla area of Islamabad issued the arrest warrants for the former prime minister in a case that was registered on August 20.

The case has been registered under sections 188 / 189 and 504/ 506.

The case has been registered in Margalla Police Station and the case number is 407.

The move came minutes after a Pakistan Muslim League-N meeting in Lahore and a subsequent press conference in which Maryam Nawaz said she was disappointed that Imran Khan has not been arrested yet and Federal Interior Minister said they could not arrest Imran Khan due to pre-arrest bails.

According to the spokesperson of Islamabad Police the arrest warrant is a legal process as Imran Khan did not appear in the court on the previous occasion.

He said to ensure his appearance in the court, the arrest warrants have been issued.

He said after an order from IHC, the section of terrorism from the case has been dropped.

The spokesperson said Imran Khan has not get his bail in this case yet and  if he does not appear, he can be arrested.

In his Aug 20 address, Imran had threatened to file cases against Islamabad’s inspector general of police and deputy inspector general of police and said: “We won’t spare you.”

The former premier had also taken exception to Additional District and Sessions Judge Zeba Chaudhry, who had approved Shahbaz Gill’s two-day physical remand at the request of the capital police, and said she should “prepare herself as the action would be taken against her”.

Shortly after, a first information report (FIR) was registered at Islamabad’s Margalla police station under the complaint of magistrate Ali Javed. The FIR said that at the PTI’s rally, Imran had “terrorised and threatened top police officials and a respected female additional sessions judge” in his address so they could not perform their functions and abstain from pursuing any action against any PTI-related individual if required to do so.

The magistrate had argued that Imran’s speech had spread fear and uncertainty among the police, judges and the nation. “Terrorism has been spread the country’s peace has been harmed,” he had added.

The FIR had requested that legal action be pursued against Imran and an “exemplary punishment” be meted out.

Later, Sections 186 (offence of obstructing public servant in the execution of public duty), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant), 504 (criminal intimidation) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Pakistan Penal Code were added to the FIR.

The arrest warrant came to light hours after Imran submitted to the Islamabad High Court an affidavit in a contempt case against him, saying he had realised he “might have crossed a line” in his criticism of Chaudhry and was willing to apologise to her “if she got an impression” that he had crossed a line.