By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has ordered jail officials to let Imran Khan’s detained sister Noreen Niazi see her daughters on Tuesday, and summoned Lahore’s top district administrator to explain why she and two other sisters of the jailed former prime minister remain in custody.
Justice Abher Gul Khan of the Lahore High Court said on Monday that Niazi’s two daughters must be allowed a one-hour meeting with their mother at 10am at Kot Lakhpat jail. Their lawyer is to submit an application to the Lahore deputy commissioner, who has been directed to arrange the visit.
The judge also ordered the deputy commissioner to appear in person on 4 November to account for the extension of the detention orders against Niazi and her sister Uzma Khan. A separate petition challenging the fresh detention of a third sister, Aleema Khanum, was adjourned until next week.
The three women were detained under the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960, in September, as Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party prepared a protest march on Islamabad to demand his release from prison. Their arrests came amid reports that several PTI leaders and workers had also been taken into custody ahead of the march.
Khanum was detained on 20 September for 30 days, and Niazi and Khan the following day for the same period. When the petitioners went to court after the 30 days lapsed last month, the Punjab government told the judge the detentions had been extended by a further 30 days.
At Monday’s hearing, the petitioners’ counsel, Rana Mudassar Umar, said Niazi’s daughters and lawyers wished to see her, and raised concerns about her health. He said she was an elderly woman whose true condition could be established only after a meeting.
Niazi, the most unwell of the three, was moved to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology on the recommendation of doctors at Kot Lakhpat jail after her health deteriorated. Rana Sanaullah, the prime minister’s adviser on political affairs, later told the Senate she was fine after receiving treatment in Lahore.
The judge asked a provincial law officer whether a particular day had been set aside for prisoners’ meetings. The officer said the jail authorities had no objection to the visit.
He also submitted a report on behalf of the Punjab Home Department saying Niazi had been taken to hospital and sent back to jail on doctors’ advice. Her daughter Hajira Niazi was allowed to see her at the hospital on 29 October, he said.
Earlier on Monday, Justice Khan had directed the Home Department to submit reports by 2pm as he heard petitions filed by Niazi’s daughter Sakeena and Khanum’s son, Shahrez Khan.
Their counsel argued that the detentions of all three women had been extended “unlawfully”. He noted that the Lahore deputy commissioner had issued a notification extending them after the initial 30-day period, and asked the court to declare the fresh notifications “illegal”. He also claimed the women had been denied access to relatives and lawyers.
PTI secretary general Salman Akram Raja, a lawyer, told the court that Khanum’s driver had also been detained. He asked for leniency towards the driver, saying his family was deeply distressed.
Justice Khan said the court would consider the matter after examining the reports.
The petitions are not the first the family has brought. Lawyers for Khan and Niazi told the court in September that both women were “non-political” and that Khan had already been acquitted in a case brought against her. The court declined at that stage to suspend the detention orders immediately and sought responses from the authorities.
On 26 October, the court disposed of an earlier petition seeking the women’s release after the Punjab government confirmed the extensions had been approved on the deputy commissioner’s recommendation. The latest petitions challenge those extensions.
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