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Police on Monday arrested Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s acting chairman and intelligence chief, intensifying a crackdown on the political party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Khan’s lawyer Ali Ijaz Buttar said Gohar Ali Khan and Raoof Hassan had been “arrested by Islamabad police” from the party office.
“I received a call from the party office informing me that 300 to 400 policemen had arrived and arrested PTI chairman Barrister Gohar and intelligence chief Raoof Hasan,” Buttar wrote on X.
The party said the interim chairman has since been released.
The party’s international media coordinator, Ahmed Waqas Janjua, was kidnapped from his home in the early hours of Saturday.
CCTV footage released by the party showed Janjua being arrested at around 4am.
The party condemned the arrests of its leaders as a mockery of the law and released footage of police swarming the party office.
Senior PTI official Khurram Sher Zaman alleged that police had seized documents and equipment and locked staff in rooms.
Party members Asad Qaiser and Fawad Chaudhry said many PTI members had been arrested and warned that such actions would deepen political instability in the country. dawn report.
“It is utterly shameful that Islamabad police continues to make a total mockery and flout all laws of the land,” the party said in X. “The law of the jungle rules in Pakistan!”
Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi were recently acquitted of illegal marriage charges, but the former prime minister was quickly arrested in three other cases, in what PTI said was “yet another ploy” to keep him in prison.
Since Khan was relieved of duty in 2022, he has been out on bail or acquitted in many of the roughly 100 criminal cases brought against him.
He said the charges were politically motivated and denied any wrongdoing.
Khan, 71, was jailed until August 2023. He was also banned from holding public office or standing as a candidate in a general election earlier this year that political parties say was rigged.
Candidates loyal to Khan won the most seats in parliament in the February 8 general election but were blocked from taking power by a rival coalition led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and backed by the country’s powerful military.
Last week, the Pakistani government announced it was banning Khan’s political party.
Speaking at a press conference in Islamabad, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the proposal to ban PTI would be considered by the cabinet and that the government would approach the Supreme Court if necessary to enforce the ban.
