By Staff Reporter
RAWALPINDI: Police in Rawalpindi on Wednesday sought legal advice on filing formal charges against leaders and supporters of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party over a protest outside Adiala jail, where the former prime minister Imran Khan is imprisoned.
The move came even as the party filed a privilege motion in the National Assembly, accusing the police of using excessive force against its workers, and raised alarms over reports that Khan might be transferred to another facility, a step the opposition warned could deepen the country’s political turmoil.
The PTI, joining other opposition groups, cautioned that any attempt to sideline the jailed former leader or suppress peaceful demonstrations would only exacerbate the standoff with the government. “The government continued to tremble at his very name” despite keeping him incarcerated for over two and a half years, the party said in a statement, condemning what it called a blatant display of “fear, political desperation and weakness.”
The new confrontation started from a sit-in outside Adiala jail on Tuesday night, which the police described in a statement as a “violent protest by a political party with the intention of attacking Adiala jail.” The authorities noted that Section 144, a colonial-era law banning public gatherings, was in force in the city, and that it was their responsibility to enforce it. A police spokesperson said Adiala jail is a sensitive and densely populated area where maintaining security and traffic order is crucial. He added that there was no visiting time at night and no one could be allowed to meet an inmate without a court order. The spokesperson claimed that the police had “shown extreme patience” during the sit-in despite “attempts to vandalise and resist the police” by protesters. “Members of the political party pelted stones and attacked the police, on which the law had to take its course,” the spokesperson said. “Water cannon had to be used, with extreme patience and strategy, to prevent malicious activity and an attack.” He added that violation of the law would not be tolerated “under any circumstances” in such a sensitive area.
The PTI offered a starkly different account. In a post on X, the party claimed that authorities had used water cannons to disperse Khan’s sisters and peaceful PTI workers outside the jail, despite a court order allowing a meeting with the jailed former prime minister. The party said Khan’s sisters — Aleema Khan, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi — along with party leaders and workers, had spent the entire day peacefully waiting outside the prison to exercise their “constitutional and legal right” to meet their incarcerated leader on a court-mandated visitation day. “This brutal crackdown on a peaceful sit-in violates basic human rights and freedom of assembly in freezing weather!” the party said. It also shared a video showing a water cannon in use as people, bundled up against the cold, fled the scene.
Dawn newspaper reported that the Tuesday night incident had already been recorded in the daily police diary and could be converted into a formal first information report, in which the accused would be nominated and booked under relevant sections of the law. In response, PTI lawmakers submitted a complaint for a privilege motion in the National Assembly against the Rawalpindi police. At a subsequent news conference, opposition leaders claimed that PTI parliamentary leader Shahid Khattak’s “leg had been broken” in the melee. The motion asserted that police had used force against PTI leaders and workers who were present outside the jail to express solidarity with the PTI founder imprisoned there. The party also voiced grave concern over reports of Khan’s possible transfer, insisting that its founding chairman could neither be “minused” nor removed from the political arena, nor could his voice be silenced behind prison walls. In its statement, the PTI condemned remarks by federal ministers suggesting that Khan may be moved to another facility, and described the episode outside the jail as a police “assault” on Khan’s sisters, female workers and party leaders. It said the incident once again exposed the “stark reality” that the incumbent government had abandoned “moral boundaries, constitutional principles and basic human values” in its use of force against political opponents.
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