Imran Khan’s party demands lifting ban on meeting him in jail

Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party on Wednesday demanded the lifting of the ban imposed on meeting him in prison, with a top aide claiming a threat to his life and his sister appealing to the party’s lawmakers to stage a sit-in outside the high-security jail.

Citing security reasons, Pakistan’s Punjab province government – led by Maryam Nawaz of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and arch-rival of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – on Tuesday imposed a two-week ban on all public visits, meetings and interviews at the high-security Adiala Jail at Rawalpindi, where the former prime minister Khan is lodged since last August.

PTI’s Sindh unit president Haleem Adil Sheikh demanded to lift the ban highlighting the threats to the 71-year-old former premier's life.

“Meetings with Imran have been banned after some terrorists were arrested a few days back. Party leaders and I have a meeting scheduled with Imran tomorrow and we must not be barred. Otherwise, the entire nation will gather outside the prison.

''We do not want to risk Imran's life as the country cannot undergo further tests,” Sheikh warned while speaking with the media outside the Sindh High Court, according to The Express Tribune newspaper.

Khan’s sister Aleema Khan gave a call to all lawmakers from the PTI and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), the party to which independents backed by PTI have joined in the National Assembly, to stage a sit-in outside the Adiala Jail “to press the government to lift a ban on his meetings with his family members and party leaders.” “I call on all elected PTI MNAs and MPAs to sit outside Adiala jail in protest until they are allowed to meet Imran Khan, and we get reassurance of Khan sab's safety,” she said.

The PTI has already described the decision as a “deliberate plan” to stop party leaders from meeting the party’s founder and claimed it was a “violation of human rights in Pakistan at its peak.” In a letter written to the IG Prisons, the Home Department said its Internal Security Wing had conveyed that “there exist different types of threats to [the] security of Adiala Jail, as some anti-state terrorist groups supported by the enemies of Pakistan had planned to conduct targeted attacks.

“As a security measure against the aforementioned attacks,” the department requested the prison chief to “stop the public visits/meetings/interviews within the Adiala Jail immediately for two weeks.”

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)