Imran Khan’s sister Aleema detained for 30 days as Pakistan braces for PTI’s Islamabad march

New Delhi: Pakistani authorities detained Aleema Khan, the sister of the country’s jailed former prime minister, Imran Khan, at her Lahore residence on Sunday, days before a major opposition march planned for Islamabad. The city’s district administration ordered her detention for 30 days under the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960, citing intelligence assessments that described her public presence as a threat to safety and order.

Pakistan’s Dawn reported that Aleema was taken into custody along with Muhammad Ameer, according to the order issued by the Lahore deputy commissioner, Muhammad Ali Ijaz. Both were to be held at the Lahor central jail, commonly known as Kot Lakhpat Jail, although the order allowed them to challenge their detention before the Punjab government.

The preventive action came a week before the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s planned September 27 march to Islamabad, organized to demand Khan’s release and campaign for what the party describes as the restoration of constitutional rule. The government has vowed to prevent the march, raising the prospect of another confrontation between PTI supporters and security forces.

The detention order cited reports from Lahore police alleging that Aleema and Ameer had previously participated in roadblocks and demonstrations following Khan’s arrest on May 9, 2023. Those protests descended into widespread violence, with military facilities and government property attacked in several Pakistani cities.

Authorities further alleged that the two were again mobilizing PTI supporters through social media and public meetings and using slogans intended to incite hostility towards the government and state institutions. The Civil Lines Division superintendent of police and the district intelligence branch consequently recommended that they be detained for 30 days to preserve public order.

The government’s reliance on the “maintenance of public order” law allows the administration to authorize preventive detention without first securing a criminal conviction. Such orders are intended to avert an anticipated disturbance, although their use against political activists has repeatedly drawn criticism from opposition parties and civil-rights campaigners because they provide limited scope for immediate judicial scrutiny.

PTI initially said unidentified authorities had taken Aleema from outside her home and described the episode as an abduction, claiming that her family had not been told where she was being held. Her son, Shahrez Khan, said she had bail in all cases registered against her in Lahore and demanded that the government disclose her whereabouts.

The PTI chairman and barrister, Gohar Ali Khan, later said Aleema’s sister, Noreen Niazi, had informed him of the arrest. Gohar insisted that the September 27 protest would be peaceful and said detaining Aleema under the public-order law risked increasing tension rather than containing it.

The party’s central information secretary, Sheikh Waqas Akram, demanded that Aleema be produced before a court, alleging that she was being punished for campaigning on behalf of her imprisoned brother. Zulfi Bukhari, a close Khan aide, also condemned the action and linked its timing to government concern over the approaching march.

The Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-Ayin-i-Pakistan, an opposition coalition that includes the PTI, accused the Punjab government of using arrests to settle political differences. It demanded the immediate release of Aleema and other people it described as political prisoners.

Her detention forms part of wider preventive action against PTI organizers in Punjab and Islamabad before the demonstration. District administrations have issued detention orders against dozens of party workers, while authorities have positioned hundreds of shipping containers near entrances to Islamabad in preparation for possible road closures.

The Islamabad high court has separately ruled that political parties and their leaders have no lawful right to occupy roads, highways, interchanges, toll plazas or buildings in the federal capital. Police detained four PTI workers on September 19 after raiding a meeting connected with preparations for the march, alleging that officers were assaulted during the operation – a claim that emerged in the broader atmosphere of political confrontation.

Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, said on September 19 that the government would take all necessary measures to stop the planned mobilization. The government maintains that restrictions are required to prevent violence and disruption, whereas the PTI says the crackdown is intended to suppress peaceful political activity.

Khan has been imprisoned since August 2023 and faces several criminal cases arising from his period in office and the unrest that followed his removal from power. He and the PTI maintain that the prosecutions are politically motivated, an accusation repeatedly rejected by the government.

Recently, as RNA Media had reported, Khan’s two sons, Kasim and Sulaiman, have accused the Pakistani army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, of carrying out his vendetta against Khan by keeping him imprisoned.

The arrest of a close member of Khan’s family is likely to intensify scrutiny of the government’s handling of dissent as the September 27 protest approaches. It also adds another pressure point to Pakistan’s prolonged political crisis, in which street mobilization, preventive detention and litigation have increasingly displaced negotiations between the government and its principal opposition party.