Imran Khan, the founder of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has been barred from organizing meetings inside Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail for two weeks by the Punjab Home Ministry, according to a Tuesday report from Geo News.
Adiala Jail has limited all types of visits, meetings, and interviews owing to security alerts, according to a statement from the Home Department.
Within a single day, the authorities are to construct barbed wire outside the jail grounds and conduct a new security audit of the staff members, members of the Intelligence Bureau, and officials of the special branch of the police.
The announcement said that everyone would be subject to a body search before entering the jail grounds and that there would be a clearing operation within and outside the facility.
It has also been requested that government contractors operating inside jails get security clearance.
“Life of PTI founder is in jeopardy”
Gohar Ali Khan, the chairman of PTI, expressed grave worries about the sudden cancellation of Khan’s meeting in Adiala jail, saying he thought Khan’s life was in jeopardy.
Speaking at a news conference outside the jail, Gohar stated that they were not allowed to see the PTI founder who was imprisoned. According to him, no one was notified by the authorities of the two-week meeting restriction on Khan.
He went on to say that the government justified the action by citing “terrorism.”
Gohar insisted on seeing and conferring with the PTI founder, who is now jailed, immediately. He also wanted to know Khan’s medical history.
Since being transferred to the Rawalpindi facility in September 2023, Khan—who is currently spending a total of 31 years in prison across numerous cases—has been meeting with his attorneys, family, and party officials on the two days designated for these sessions, Mondays and Thursdays.
The former prime minister and Shah Mahmood Qureshi were both given 10-year sentences in January in connection with the cipher case, which involved the publication of the contents of a covert cable that the nation’s envoy in Washington forwarded to the Islamabad administration.
Subsequently, an accountability court in the Toshakhana reference sentenced Khan and his spouse, Bushra Bibi, to an additional 14 years of imprisonment for misusing their premiership from 2018 to 2022 to purchase and sell gifts in state custody that they had received during foreign visits and valued at over Rs140 million ($635,000).
The pair was also fined Rs1.57 billion, or Rs787 million apiece, by the court.
In the “un-Islamic nikah” case, Khan and Bushra were later given further sentences of seven years each and a penalty of Rs 500,000 for being married before the 90-day iddat period after the latter’s divorce was over.
Additionally, during the detention trial held in the Adiala jail, the founder of the PTI and his spouse were indicted in the £190 million case.
In recent months, Khan’s party and allies have repeatedly called for his release from “fabricated” cases and expressed worries about the former prime minister’s safety while incarcerated.
The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) said last week that it had apprehended three terrorists and found a hand grenade, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and a plan of Adiala Jail in their hands.
According to Khalid Hamdani, the City Police Officer (CPO) of Rawalpindi, the police seized automatic weapons and ammunition from the terrorists who were Afghan nationals.
Prior to that, in November, authorities in Gorakhpur, Rawalpindi, discovered a suspicious bag containing an explosive device close to Adiala Road, which is only one kilometer from the facility.
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