Islamabad: Jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party says it is concerned about his safety and security in prison, where “his life is under threat”. Khan, 70, was arrested and sent to jail for three years following his conviction in a corruption case by an Islamabad court on Saturday.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, vice chairman of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said that the former prime minister was not being allowed to meet his lawyers in two days. He said the party leadership is “extremely concerned” about his well being. Khan’s lawyer claimed that the PTI chief has been kept in distressing conditions and provided “C-class” prison facilities at Attock jail in Pakistan’s Punjab.
Soon after the verdict, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief was arrested by the police from his residence in Lahore. The jail administration did not allow his lawyers and party colleagues to meet him for two days. However, on Monday afternoon, Naeem Haider Panjotha, Imran’s spokesperson on legal matters, was allowed to meet him.
Earlier on Monday, Panjotha filed a petition in the Islamabad high court requesting it to declare Imran’s detention in Attock Jail as “illegal”. The petition also requested for “better class/A-class” jail facilities to be provided to the PTI chief. It urged that Imran be allowed to regularly meet his legal team, family members, his personal doctor, Dr Faisal Sultan, and political aides, lists for which were submitted to the court.
The petition stated that “it is yet to be ascertained” under which law the PTI chief had been detained at Attock Jail when the arrest warrant issued by the trial court intended for him to be kept at Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi. It said that the former PM had been “confined in a dirty room which has traditionally been reserved for terrorists.