By Staff REporter
LAHORE: The Punjab government has extended the detention of Imran Khan’s three sisters by a further 30 days, the Lahore High Court was told on Monday, shortly before a judge closed a petition demanding their release.
Aleema Khan, Dr Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi have been held at Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore since September under Section 3 of the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960. An assistant advocate general told Justice Abher Gul Khan that the provincial government had approved the fresh period on the recommendation of the Lahore deputy commissioner. He handed the court a report from the home secretary saying the renewal was ordered on 7 October.
That date falls nearly two weeks before the original 30-day orders ran out, on 19 October for Aleema and 20 October for Uzma and Noreen. The petition, brought last week by Aleema’s son, Shahrez Khan, had argued that the women were still in custody after those orders expired. The home secretary and the Kot Lakhpat jail superintendent were in court after the judge summoned them to explain why.
Rana Mudassar Umar, the lawyer for Khan, asked the court to order that the three women be recovered and produced before it. Justice Khan observed that the detention orders were issued by the deputy commissioner, who had not been named as a respondent, and said the court could not grant relief beyond the scope of the petition. He then disposed of the plea. It was not immediately clear whether the family would file a fresh petition naming the official.
The petition also argued that none of the women is wanted in a criminal case, and that preventive detention should not be used in place of proceedings under ordinary criminal law. Uzma’s husband, Ahad Khan, was present in court with Shahrez Khan.
Aleema was detained in Lahore on 20 September and moved to Kot Lakhpat. Uzma and Noreen were taken into custody the next day on police recommendation. The detentions came as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) prepared a march on Islamabad to demand the release of its jailed founder and what the party calls the supremacy of the Constitution. The deputy commissioner’s orders cited police reports alleging that the women’s activities threatened public safety and public order.
On 24 September, Justice Khan declined to suspend the notifications against Uzma and Noreen immediately and sought replies from the authorities. Their counsel had told the court that both women were housewives and that Uzma had already been cleared in a case against her.
The MPO is a preventive detention law with colonial-era roots, under which people can be held without being charged. Local reports say detention beyond 90 days generally requires review by a board of High Court judges.
The march was first set for 27 September but was postponed to 4 October. Talks between the government and the party then broke down, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Sohail Afridi led convoys out of Lakki Marwat on 4 October. However, the federal government imposed governor’s rule and an emergency in the northwestern province. President Asif Ali Zardari’s proclamations of emergency and governor’s rule were ratified by a joint sitting of parliament for two months. Afridi and some of his cabinet members were taken into preventive custody after the proclamations.
Imran Khan has been in Adiala jail in Rawalpindi since August 2023. He denies wrongdoing, and his party says the cases against him are politically motivated.
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