Last week, Khan’s sisters – Noreen Niazi, Aleema Khan, and Dr Uzma Khan – and party members were allegedly brutally assaulted when they camped outside the jail after being denied a meeting with the PTI chief for a month. Khan’s three sisters have demanded an impartial probe into the “brutal” police assault on them and supporters of their brother outside the Adiala Jail last week.In a letter to Punjab police chief Usman Anwar, Khan’s sisters said the violence was “brutal and orchestrated and carried out by policemen without provocation”.
“We peacefully protested over concerns for his health condition. We neither blocked roads nor obstructed public movement, nor engaged in any unlawful conduct. Yet, without warning or provocation, the streetlights in the area were abruptly switched off, deliberately casting the scene into darkness. What followed was a brutal and orchestrated assault by Punjab police personnel,” Noreen Niazi said, news agency PTI reported.
Naizi said other women present outside the jail were slapped and dragged.
“Police’s conduct was part of a broader and troubling pattern of indiscriminate force used against peacefully protesting citizens over three years, reflecting a troubling impunity.
Khan has been in jail since August 2023 in multiple cases. The government has placed an undeclared ban on the meetings for over one month. Even Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Sohail Afridi was not allowed to meet Khan. Afridi made seven consecutive attempts to see him in jail, but he was denied by the jail authorities, whom Khan claims were controlled by an army officer.
