Aleema Khan, the sister of PTI founder Imran Khan, has filed a contempt of court petition against the Adiala jail superintendent and others over their failure to comply with an earlier Islamabad High Court (IHC) order that reinstated a twice-a-week meeting schedule for the incarcerated former premier.
The petition was filed after Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, along with several other PTI members, staged an overnight sit-in outside Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, where Imran has been imprisoned since 2023. The sit-in was staged as CM Afridi was denied a meeting with Imran for the eighth time on Thursday.
Previously, Imran’s sisters, including Aleema, had also staged sit-ins outside the prison in Rawalpindi on multiple occasions after they were barred from meeting the former premier.
The PTI ended its latest sit-in on Friday morning, with the KP CM announcing that they would be approaching the IHC, where Aleema has now filed a contempt plea.
Apart from Adiala Jail Superintendent Abdul Ghafoor Anjum, Saddar Beroni Station House Office Raja Aizaz Azeem, Federal Interior Secretary Capt (retd) Muhammad Khurram Agha and Punjab Home Department Secretary Noorul Amin have been named as respondents in the plea.
The plea, a copy of which is available with Dawn, stated that Aleema had “remained deeply concerned about the well-being, legal rights, and humane treatment of her brother during his ongoing incarceration”.
The petition referred to the IHC’s March 24 order, in which the court had reinstated the twice-a-week meeting schedule for Imran. It said Aleema sought the initiation of contempt of court proceedings “on account of the wilful non-implementation of the orders passed by this honourable court, particularly with respect to the authorities’ failure to allow” her meetings with Imran, in line with the court’s directives in March.
It further stated that “due to the persistent non-cooperation” of the Adiala jail superintendent and “ongoing political victimisation”, Imran and others were “constrained” to file writ petitions before the IHC, seeking the enforcement of visitation rights.
“However, despite the clear and unequivocal directions of this honourable court, the respondents have failed to comply and have repeatedly denied access to the legal counsel, family members, and associates” of Imran on multiple occasions, it added.
The plea further recalled that in line with previous court orders, the respondents had devised on March 28, 2024 standard operating procedures (SOPs) for meeting Imran. According to those SOPs, Tuesdays and Thursdays were “designated for interviews with Imran by his family/ lawyers and friends, respectively”.
Despite directions for allowing visits to Imran on Tuesdays and Thursdays, “the respondents did not comply with or implement the same”, the plea said.
It recalled that the Adiala Jail superintendent had also submitted an undertaking to the IHC on November 8, 2024 that Imran’s friends would be allowed to meet him on Tuesday the following week and his family and lawyers would be permitted to meet him on Thursday, according to the list provided by the ex-premier.
But when several PTI leaders went to Adiala Jail to meet Imran on November 11, 2024, the superintendent “caused them to wait for several hours and thereafter unlawfully detained them in police custody”.
The plea alleged that the respondents were “wilfully flouting” the court orders and the undertaking submitted to it, and “conducted themselves to ridicule the authority” of the IHC.
It said their actions were an “apparent activity of serious contempt of this honourable court, for which they are liable to be dealt with under criminal proceedings”.
The plea sought the initiation of contempt proceedings against the respondents for not complying with the IHC’s March 24 order and urged the court to punish them in accordance with the law “to meet the ends of justice”.
It also sought the court’s directives for the respondents to comply with its March 24 order.
‘Was told CJ did not want to meet us’
Aleema, along with KP CM Afridi, had reached the IHC in the morning, where the two intended to meet the IHC chief justice.
However, while speaking to the media at the IHC, CM Afridi said that they were informed that the high court chief justice “did not want to meet them”.
The provincial chief executive lamented that no one had been allowed to meet Imran or his wife, Bushra Bibi, since October 27. “We know nothing about his condition,” he said.
“Neither his sisters are allowed to meet him, nor his [party’s] leadership, nor lawyers, nor doctors.”
He also recalled a sit-in staged by Imran’s sisters outside Adiala Jail on November 19. The PTI has alleged that police had manhandled and “violently detained” Imran’s sisters on the occasion.
“The whole nation saw what happened. Imran Khan sahib’s sisters were dragged along the road by their hair, pushed down and disrespected. Even though they have no connection with politics; they just go to see their brother.”
The KP CM said he, along with six other people, had asked jail authorities yesterday to allow them to speak to Imran for “just two or three minutes”.
“We also assured them that we will not talk about politics or administrative matters. We said we just wanted to find out about his health.
“But we were still not allowed to meet.”
CM Afridi alleged that the KP and its government were facing discrimination, saying that “in other provinces, Pakistan Air Force planes were used for the chief minister’s travel”.
“By such actions, you are creating division. You are causing resentment and distances to grow,” he said.
He alleged that efforts were being made to “put Pakistan’s strongest political party against the wall” with its leader being discriminated against and his family, party and government in KP being targeted.
“You are worsening the situation yourselves,” CM Afridi said, warning that if it worsened further, “neither side would be able to bring it under control”.
He announced that the PTI had also decided not to let National Assembly and Senate sessions scheduled for today proceed “because we want our leadership and Imran Khan sahib’s sisters to be allowed to meet him”.
The legislatures were not of any use if they could not deliver justice to their representatives, he decried.
“Business as usual will not go on after this” until the PTI founder was allowed to meet his sisters and party leadership, he added.
The KP chief minister said that they had called on “all parliamentarians, from all over Pakistan”, to gather and protest peacefully outside the high court on Tuesday before proceeding to Adiala Jail.
“The Constitution and the law give us the right to protest,” he said. “We will definitely use this option,” he said, adding that if their constitutional right to meet Imran was granted, the PTI would not turn to protest.
‘Entire focus on one illegal demand’
Meanwhile, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar accused the PTI, including KP CM Afridi, of adopting an approach in which governance for the people was pushed to the back burner.
“And the entire focus is on one illegal demand that political guidance is to be taken only from the [party] founder serving a sentence in Adiala jail in a corruption case,” he added. “This is against jail rules,” he claimed.
Highlighting the importance of KP in the context of the fight against terrorism, he said: “Instead of the provincial government prioritising peace, progress and relief for the public, the party leadership kept itself busy in Islamabad by centering its politics on this illegal narrative”.
Continuing his accusations, he added: “Allegedly, a woman politician from the PTI […] ran a vile campaign regarding Khan sahib through anti-Pakistan accounts operating from Afghanistan and on the Indian media. This was an attempt to defame Pakistan worldwide.
“This approach is open enmity against Pakistan […] The PTI should abandon the anti-Pakistan narrative and [its] wrong priorities and now give preference to the interests of the people and the state.”
Failed efforts
Imran’s family and the PTI have repeatedly accused prison authorities of “sabotaging” meetings with him.
Among them, KP CM Afridi has been seeking a meeting with the former prime minister since his election on October 13.
He had taken his oath as the provincial chief executive on October 15 and gone to Adiala jail to meet Imran the very next day after getting protective bail from the Peshawar High Court. However, he was turned away after a wait of two hours.
On Oct 17, he moved the IHC, seeking a meeting with Imran, and wrote a letter to Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi with the same request.
The plea was taken up on October 23 along with several other similar ones by an IHC bench, which directed the Adiala jail superintendent to implement the high court’s March 24 order.
However, Afridi’s attempts to meet the PTI founder have failed so far.
Yesterday was the eighth time that he was denied a meeting with Imran since becoming the provincial chief executive.
Visuals reposted by the PTI on X showed CM Afridi, along with other party workers, offering Fajr prayers outside the jail on Friday morning before they ended the sit-in. Other images showed Afridi and others huddled around a fire.
Earlier, on November 19, the PTI had held a protest outside the jail as the jail administration did not allow party leaders and the PTI founder’s family to meet him. The party alleged that police manhandled and “violently detained” Imran’s sisters on the occasion.
An hours-long sit-in was also held more recently on November 25 and was wrapped up at the request of Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM) leader Allama Raja Nasir.
Concerns about Imran’s health
Meanwhile, the PTI had expressed concern over Imran’s health while incarcerated, as he has been barred from seeing his family and lawyers for over three weeks.
Former PM’s aide Zulfi Bukhari said no one has seen Imran since November 4 and no reason has been given for denying meetings.
“His health is our concern. We are worried about his illegal isolation,” Bukhari told Reuters, demanding the government give Imran’s family immediate access to him.
A jail official told Reuters that the former premier was in good health and that he was not aware of any plans to move him to any other facility. He spoke on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.
The Interior Ministry did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
Amid media reports that the 73-year-old former international cricketer might be moved to a high-security prison to make meeting him more challenging, international media outlets such as Japan’s Nikkei and the BBC also covered the concern over his status. His well-being became a talking point on social media with the trend ‘Where is Imran Khan?’ also trending on X in the morning. The interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
But yesterday, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Rana Sanaullah and senior PTI leaders dismissed reports of former premier Imran Khan’s ill health, with both sides stating that the PTI founder is ‘fine and nothing is wrong with him’.
