ISLAMABAD: Citing “security” concerns, Pakistani officials on Tuesday put a two-week ban on all public visits, gatherings, and interviews at the Adiala prison in Rawalpindi, where Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader and former prime minister Imran Khan is being held.
Following the elections on February 8, Imran and PTI leaders have been gathering at Adiala Prison, where party members are seeking political counsel over their next move.
Punjab’s home department said in a letter to the jail head that its internal security unit had information indicating terrorists were receiving help from anti-state organizations that intended to attack the prison in order to destabilize the nation. The agency said that it asked the prison head to immediately halt public visits, meetings, and interviews inside Adiala jail for a period of two weeks as a security precaution against the danger.
Days after Punjab’s police and counter-terrorism department (CTD), an ISI front, arrested three suspected terrorists and allegedly stopped a plan to assault the prison, the decision was made.
Politicians from the PTI who were not allowed to meet with Imranon on Tuesday criticized the Punjab administration. The “blanket ban on meetings” with Imran, according to party spokeswoman Raoof Hasan, is a “criminal act that reflects the extent of fear the unconstitutional and illegal government of Punjab and their handlers (a reference to a few powerful army generals) suffer from.”
PTI chairman and attorney Gohar Ali Khan said that Imran Khan’s abrupt imprisonment is a sign that his life is in jeopardy at a news conference in Islamabad. The justification given for the two-week blanket prohibition was the existence of a terror threat. We vehemently oppose this all-encompassing prohibition,” he said.
In September 2023, Imran was transferred from Attock Prison to Adialaprison. He is now serving time for a number of convictions.
In January, Imran and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, the former foreign minister, were both given 10-year terms in the cipher case related to the suspected leakage of state secrets. Following this, an anti-corruption court in the Toshakhana (state treasure house) case sentenced Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to 14 years each for abusing their positions as prime minister from 2018 to 2022 by purchasing and selling gifts from the state. In the illegal wedding case, Khan and Bushra received an additional seven years in prison for getting married before the 90-day iddat (the time a woman must wait in Islamic law after a divorce or the death of her spouse) had passed.