By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday refused police permission to search his Lahore residence for suspects involved in this month’s attacks on military buildings and laid out his own conditions and prerequisites for any such operation.
Punjab’s interim government earlier claimed that “30 to 40 terrorists” responsible for recent attacks on military properties were believed to be hiding at Khan’s Lahore’s Zaman Park residence.
Khan has denied allegations of providing refuge to individuals linked to recent violent incidents, saying that any search operation inside Zaman Park must be authorized by a high court-appointed panel comprising representatives from both the government and his political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.
Moreover, Khan underscored the necessity of having a female officer accompany the panel during the search operations.
“They first said that there were terrorists (inside), but then they said that there were wanted men,” Khan told reporters.
“I asked them if they could come and see inside if there were any wanted men, but they said they wanted to search my home, which I couldn’t allow,” he said.
Khan was arrested on May 9 on graft charges, which he denies. His arrest triggered a wave of violence by supporters who attacked government buildings, public properties, and military installations, including its headquarters and the house of a military commander in Lahore.
Khan said a significant number of his party’s leadership, along with thousands of supporters, have already been detained by Punjab’s interim government that considers his followers as “wanted” individuals.
“If they have to search, it will be under a court order, as stated earlier, with representatives from both sides and a woman included.”
The former prime minister voiced his lack of trust in the authorities, questioning their assertion of discovering weapons at his residence during their operation to apprehend him earlier this year.
He said he feared that the police, unsupervised, could plant weapons.
Khan’s home is in the Zaman Park neighborhood of Lahore and was the site of pitched battles in March between his supporters and the police, who had tried to arrest Khan for not showing up in court.
A government statement said the search team handed over all the evidence about the suspects living inside Zaman Park. It said a list of 2,200 suspects involved in the violence was also handed over to Khan.
Lahore police chief Bilal Kamyana said police had arrested 14 suspects involved in the attack on the Lahore’s commander house as they tried to escape from Zaman Park.
Punjab information minister Aamir Mir said provincial authorities met Khan’s aides at his Zaman Park residence “to establish Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for conducting the search operation.” “However, no consensus had been reached between the two parties,” Mir told private Geo TV.
Mir said that the provincial government had provided Khan with “compelling evidence, including geo-fencing data and call detail records (CDRs) of individuals whose presence was detected at his Zaman Park residence.”
He said there were no plans to rearrest Khan.
“The PTI chairman was informed by the team that certain suspects arrested in connection with the violence on May 9 had confessed to planning an attack on the Gujranwala Corps Commander House and are hiding in his residence.”
Dawn newspaper reported that the Punjab government “will devise its own strategy to apprehend alleged arsonists who have taken refuge in Zaman Park.
“Due to the ongoing deadlock and the failure to reach an agreement on the search of Khan’s residence, the caretaker interior minister stated that the Punjab government would proceed with its own approach.”
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