By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: Noreen Niazi, the 70-year-old sister of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, was taken from a Lahore prison to a cardiac hospital on Wednesday after suffering heart-related discomfort, her lawyer said.
Niazi was moved from Kot Lakhpat jail to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology, where doctors began a first round of tests. “Noreen Niazi Sahiba has been transferred to Punjab Institute of Cardiology due to deteriorating health in jail,” her lawyer, Rana Mudassar Umar, wrote on X. He alleged that no member of her family was told she was being taken to hospital.
Local media reports citing sources said she arrived at the emergency department under heavy police supervision, with a rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure, chest pain and shortness of breath. Changes in her ECG led doctors to order blood tests to establish whether she had suffered a heart attack. Those reports said she was later moved to a ward for observation and that security around the hospital was tightened. A heart attack has not been confirmed. No official medical update had been published at the time of writing.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party described her condition as “extremely alarming” in a statement on X. It said the 70-year-old was being held in illegal and unconstitutional detention, and called it “the most shameful thing” that not one relative had been informed of her move. “If anything happens to her, the entire responsibility will lie directly with the current rulers and the relevant administration,” the party said. It also accused the government of harassing the former prime minister’s family for political reasons.
Niazi and her sisters, Aleema Khan and Dr Uzma Khan, have been held at Kot Lakhpat under section 3 of the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960. The 1960 law allows preventive detention without charge. Aleema was detained on 20 September, and Uzma and Noreen the following day, a week before the PTI’s planned march on Islamabad.
Lahore police said the sisters’ activities were prejudicial to public safety and the maintenance of public order. Interior minister Mohsin Naqvi said the PTI would not be allowed to come to the capital and shut it down.
The initial orders ran for 30 days. On Monday, an assistant advocate general told the Lahore High Court that the provincial government had approved a further 30 days for all three women, on the recommendation of the Lahore deputy commissioner. The court then disposed of a petition seeking their release. The petition was brought by Aleema’s son, Shahrez Khan. PTI leaders have questioned why the sisters are being held when, they say, they are not wanted in any criminal case, and describe the detentions as part of a wider crackdown on the party.
The PTI had planned to start its march on 27 September but postponed it to 4 October. It set off from Lakki Marwat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after negotiations with the government failed. Among the party’s demands is immediate access to Khan and a hospital where his own doctors can examine him. Concerns about the 73-year-old’s health, in particular a right eye that has needed months of specialist treatment, have driven the campaign for his release. Khan has been in prison since 2023.
The sisters have been among the most visible voices in that campaign. They regularly sought access to him before they were detained. Niazi has also faced legal trouble of her own. In July the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency registered a case against her over a podcast interview in which she made claims about the four-day conflict between Pakistan and India in May 2025. The Lahore High Court granted her protective bail. The PTI chairman, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, said her remarks reflected personal views rather than the party’s position, and the court later restrained the agency from arresting her in that case.
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