Aleema Khan held for 30 days under 3-MPO and moved to Kot Lakhpat Jail as MNAs are picked up in the capital; Punjab’s information minister says a ‘third rebellion’ is being planned.
LAHORE: A crackdown on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s leadership widened on Sunday, a week before the party’s announced Islamabad long march, with Aleema Khan detained in Lahore for 30 days under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance and shifted to Kot Lakhpat Jail.
In Islamabad, party spokesperson Sheikh Waqas Akram said MNA Ahsan Jamal Khan was arrested directly outside the National Assembly building, while MNAs Mian Ghaus, Sanaullah Khan Masti Khel and Dawar Khan Kundi, and Senator Saifullah Niazi, were also reported taken into custody, several of them from Parliament Lodges.
Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari, speaking in Lahore the same day, alleged that a third attempt at rebellion was being planned for September 27 after what she called the failed May 9 and November 26 episodes. The PTI rejects the characterisation and calls the detentions political victimisation.
Aleema Khan was detained on Sunday morning as she left her Upper Mall residence, according to sources, and was taken first to Lytton Road Police Station and then to Kot Lakhpat Jail. A detention order issued by the Lahore deputy commissioner placed her in the custody of the jail superintendent for 30 days, citing a police report that her activities were harmful to public safety and to the maintenance of law and order, referring to her role during the May 9 protests and road blockades and alleging that she had incited workers to damage public property. The order also noted that the District Intelligence Committee had recommended detention under 3-MPO.
Her counsel, Rana Mudassar, told reporters she had secured bail in every case registered against her in Lahore and was nonetheless being held, and said she had initially been taken to an undisclosed location.
PTI leader Omar Ayub condemned the detention on X, describing it as fascism, while Naureen Niazi, another sister of the PTI founder, questioned why the authorities were arresting women and said the family would not be deterred. These accounts are the party’s; the Punjab government has defended the detentions as preventive measures under law.
In the federal capital, PTI leaders were picked up one after another from Parliament Lodges and from outside the National Assembly and moved to undisclosed locations. PTI spokesperson Sheikh Waqas Akram said MNA Ahsan Jamal Khan, elected from Mianwali, was arrested immediately outside the Assembly building, and that MNAs Mian Ghaus, Sanaullah Khan Masti Khel and Dawar Khan Kundi had also been taken into custody. Senator Saifullah Niazi, the party’s chief organiser, was reported detained from inside Parliament Lodges. Hamood bin Sami, son of Bahawalpur PTI leader Samiullah Chaudhry, was also reported arrested.
The Sunday detentions follow a pattern set earlier in the month. Earlier on September 12, the Rawalpindi deputy commissioner had issued 30-day detention orders under 3-MPO against 155 PTI workers, that 35 prominent workers from the district had already been moved to Adiala Jail, and that a list of 118 leaders had been drawn up for possible arrest. The party has been building towards the march since August, when it took its street movement into Sindh and set out a plan for convoys converging on Islamabad.
The arrests also come days after the Islamabad High Court restrained the authorities from arresting or harassing a group of PTI leaders ahead of the march, in a petition in which counsel alleged that raids on workers’ homes had resumed. Whether Sunday’s detentions fall within the scope of that order is a question for the court; no consolidated official list of those held had been issued at the time of filing.
Against that backdrop, Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari told reporters in Lahore that Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz was transforming the province and that opponents unable to compete on performance were resorting to personal attacks. She alleged that the failed rebellions of May 9 and November 26 had become a burden on the PTI founder and that a third attempt was planned for September 27. She urged parents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to keep their children away from it, alleging that the PTI founder’s own children were living comfortably in London. These are political allegations, unsupported by evidence produced at the briefing, and the PTI rejects them.
Federal Petroleum Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik, speaking separately in Lahore on Sunday, said he was unaware of Aleema Khan’s detention and that no one would be allowed to march on Islamabad. The Punjab government has previously imposed Section 144 province-wide in response to security assessments, and the PTI has pursued parallel legal avenues, including petitions concerning the PTI founder’s health and pending cases.
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