By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: Police detained Aleema Khan, the sister of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, in Lahore on Sunday, and a district official ordered her held for 30 days under a public-order law, a week before her brother’s party plans a march on the capital to demand his release.
The order, signed by Lahore Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Ali Ijaz, directed that Khan and a man named Muhammad Ameer be held at Central Jail Kot Lakhpat under Section 3 of the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance of 1960.
“I am convinced that the presence of Aleema Khan . . . at any public place will pose a grave threat to the public safety and will likely cause breach of public peace and public order,” the deputy commissioner wrote, according to the text of the order .
The ordinance, known in Pakistan as the 3-MPO, lets authorities order detention without a criminal trial and restricts judicial review of such orders. It permits detention to be extended for up to six months at a time. The order states that the detainees may make a representation to the provincial government.
A government spokesperson and police did not respond to requests for comment. Dawn also sought comment from police and had received no response. Faisal Kamran, a deputy inspector general of police in Lahore, told local media that he was following the news on television like everyone else and declined further comment.
The detention adds a new flashpoint to an already strained confrontation between the government and Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, which has called a countrywide protest and march on Islamabad for Sept. 27. The party says it wants Khan freed and the Constitution upheld.
What the order says
The order cites a request from Lahore’s capital city police officer, who relied on reports from the superintendent of police for the Civil Lines division and the head of the district intelligence branch. Those reports described Khan and Ameer as “prejudicial to the public safety and maintenance of public order.”
The reports alleged the two took part in road blockades and protests on May 9, 2023, when Khan’s supporters poured into the streets after his first arrest, and that they encouraged workers to damage public and government property. They also alleged the pair were again mobilising supporters through social media and public meetings, and chanting slogans against the government and state institutions in order to provoke the public.
Multiple criminal cases had been registered against the two, the order said, including one filed at Race Course police station under FIR No. 96/23. Authorities described them as “potential dangers to public peace and tranquillity.”
The deputy commissioner said the matter went before a district intelligence committee he chaired on Sunday, which endorsed the police material and unanimously recommended detention. The order was issued under a 2017 Punjab Home Department notification and Section 3(1) of the ordinance.
Family disputes account
Khan’s family and lawyers said the circumstances of the arrest were murky and, they argued, unlawful.
According to family and party sources, Khan left her home on Upper Mall shortly after 1 p.m. and was headed toward the Lahore Gymkhana Club when police stopped her vehicle. She was taken, along with her driver and car, to the Lytton Road police station and later moved to Kot Lakhpat, they said. Family members noted that the spot where she was stopped falls outside that station’s jurisdiction.
Her son, Shahrez Khan, said on X that his mother had been “abducted” and that the family had no word of her whereabouts. “She is on bail in all cases against her in Lahore,” he wrote. He demanded that the government disclose where she was being held.
Rana Mudassar, one of her lawyers, told reporters she had been granted bail in every case registered against her in Lahore yet remained in custody, and alleged she had first been taken to an undisclosed location. Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry, a lawyer for Imran Khan, said Aleema Khan had been moved to prison while her driver and car remained with police.
Noreen Niazi, another of Khan’s sisters, said the arrest showed the government’s anxiety. “I do not know why they are so worried that they are arresting women as well,” she said. The family would not be frightened, she added, and would keep working for her brother’s release.
Party and opposition condemn detention
PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said in a post on X that he learned of the arrest from Niazi. He called it “the first step towards worsening the situation.”
“We have always made it clear that our march will be peaceful and political,” he said. “We do not want any kind of confrontation or violence.” He demanded her immediate release and said the party would soon announce how it would respond.
Sheikh Waqas Akram, the party’s central information secretary, invoked a pledge by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz that women are a “red line.” He called Khan an elderly woman taken from outside her home and demanded she be presented in court. “A sister is being punished for speaking up for her brother,” he wrote.
Zulfi Bukhari, a close aide to Imran Khan, said the arrest was meant to break the momentum of the Sept. 27 protest. “The fear of the 27th protest is clearly taking its toll,” he said.
The opposition alliance Tehreek-e-Tahaffuz-e-Ayin-e-Pakistan, which includes the PTI, also condemned the move. In a statement it called the detention an escalation of a crackdown that has now reached the families of political workers, and said Khan had been held with no charge against her. That claim sits uneasily with the deputy commissioner’s order, which cites multiple registered cases. The alliance demanded her release along with that of other “political prisoners.”
Allama Raja Nasir Abbas, the opposition leader in the Senate and the alliance’s vice chairman, said in a phone call with Noreen Niazi that the arrests showed a government that had become nervous.
The party said Khan’s sisters would hold an emergency press conference at Zaman Park in Lahore later on Sunday.
A week of detentions
The arrest follows a run of actions against party members in Punjab and Islamabad. A week ago, district authorities issued preventive detention orders under the same ordinance against dozens of party workers, including 31 in one Punjab notification and 14 more in Toba Tek Singh. Local media put the number of party workers arrested at more than 100.
In Islamabad, police on Saturday took four PTI activists into custody from a property dealer’s office in the E-16 sector, where they said workers were meeting to plan the protest. Police said the workers assaulted the raiding team, tore their uniforms and held officers hostage. On Thursday, Salman Akram Raja, the party’s secretary general, said he was released after being briefly detained.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said Saturday the government would take all possible measures to stop the march. Authorities have placed hundreds of shipping containers at entry points to the capital. The Islamabad High Court has ruled that no party or its leadership has a “lawful right to occupy public roads, highways, interchanges, toll plazas and buildings” in the city, and directed provincial governments to ensure public resources are not used to help people join a march on the capital.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s police chief, Zulfiqar Hameed, instructed officers on Saturday not to facilitate any march, rally or procession heading to Islamabad. Gohar said Sunday the party would not break any law or block roads and that government resources would not be used for the march. He also said the court should not have sought an affidavit from the police chief.
Talks stalled
Gohar said Sunday that he supports negotiations with the government but described the political climate as “cold.” “Political problems require political solutions,” he told a local television channel in Peshawar. He did not deny meeting Naqvi. “Meetings keep happening,” he said.
Abbas said Saturday that Naqvi had met opposition leaders at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House and was told that only Imran Khan could decide whether to postpone the march.
Sisters’ fight for access
Aleema Khan and her two sisters have been at the center of a long-running dispute over access to Imran Khan at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. Local media reported the three were stopped at a checkpoint outside the jail on Sept. 15, after which Aleema Khan staged a sit-in with a small group of party workers.
Imran Khan, a former cricket captain who led Pakistan to the 1992 World Cup, has been imprisoned for more than three years. He was removed from office by a parliamentary vote in April 2022 and says the military and the government colluded to oust him. Both deny it. He says the cases against him are politically motivated. Local media reported Sunday that a medical team from a Rawalpindi hospital and an eye hospital examined him at Adiala amid continuing concern over his health.
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