Police detained Aleema Khan, sister of jailed former prime minister and PTI founder Imran Khan, at her Lahore residence on September 20 ahead of the party’s planned September 27 march to Islamabad.
Reuters reported that Lahore’s district administration ordered her detention for 30 days. According to the administration’s notification, intelligence reports indicated that her presence in public would pose a threat to public safety.
The detention comes as PTI prepares for a march on the federal capital. The party has said the mobilisation is intended, among other demands, to press for Imran Khan’s release.
Government and PTI positions
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said a day before the detention that the government would take measures to stop the September 27 march.
PTI figures have condemned Aleema Khan’s detention. Zulfi Bukhari, an aide to Imran Khan, linked the move to the government’s concern over the planned protest.
Those are competing political positions. The district administration’s stated basis for the detention is public safety; PTI disputes the government’s handling of the mobilisation and portrays the action as an attempt to suppress the protest.
The detention also comes amid wider preventive action ahead of September 27. Dawn reported on September 20 that Islamabad police had taken four PTI activists and workers into custody under separate criminal charges after police said they were holding a meeting connected to the planned protest.
Pressure building before September 27
The political confrontation is developing alongside contacts between the government and opposition leaders over whether the march can be postponed.
Senate Opposition Leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas has said that only Imran Khan can decide whether the protest is called off, while government representatives have sought to prevent the mobilisation.
Aleema Khan’s detention therefore adds another immediate dispute to an already tense week before the planned march. Whether the protest proceeds, and under what conditions, remains unresolved.
Sources
- Reuters — Police arrest Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan’s sister in Lahore ahead of party’s planned march
- Dawn — Capital police move into action against PTI