Pakistan’s police have arrested Aleema Khan, the sister of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, from her house in the eastern city of Lahore, the capital of Punjab province. The arrest on Sunday came exactly a week before a planned protest march by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on September 27 to demand his release. A senior police official in Lahore, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, confirmed the arrest but did not give more details.
The deputy commissioner of Lahore passed an order, a copy of which was seen by Al Jazeera, for Aleema Khan’s 30-day detention under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) law of Punjab. The law allows the authorities to order the preventive detention of a person if deemed necessary for public order or safety. It is not yet known in which case, location, or police station she is being held.” There was no immediate comment from the government on the arrest.
On Saturday, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said the government would do everything it could to stop the PTI protest march, the news agency reported on Sunday. The PTI condemned the arrest, calling it illegal and demanding her immediate release. This is an illegal arrest.
This is cowardice and a deliberate attempt to worsen the situation,” PTI spokesperson Sheikh Waqas Akram posted on X. Imran Khan, 73, has been jailed since August 2023 over a series of convictions his party calls politically driven. All but one have since been suspended or overturned on appeal.
Concerns over his health, in particular the condition of his right eye, which has required months of specialist treatment, have driven the PTI campaign to demand his release. His sons – Sulaiman and Kasim Khan – told Al Jazeera recently that they are increasingly worried after hearing that their father is “agitated” and suffering from “severe anxiety”. Last month, the country’s Supreme Court ordered Pakistani authorities to transfer the former prime minister to the privately-run Shifa International Hospital in the capital, Islamabad.
Under the order, Khan was to remain there under medical care until the case was next heard, according to his lawyer. Officials instead took him to the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) for a brief check-up before returning him to jail and did not give him access to his personal physician, which his party says was a breach of the top court’s orders.
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