Preventive detention cuts the march calendar
On Sunday Lahore police took Aleema Khan, sister of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, from her home. An order seen by Al Jazeera, issued by the city's deputy commissioner, set a 30-day preventive detention under Punjab's Maintenance of Public Order law, which lets the authorities hold a person without a criminal charge if they judge public order requires it. The News and Aaj English, citing party sources, said she was moved to Kot Lakhpat Jail.[1]
The order landed exactly a week before Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's call to march on Islamabad on 27 September. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Saturday the government would do everything it could to stop that march, Reuters reported. A party spokesperson called the arrest illegal. The government had no immediate comment. Imran Khan, 73, has been in prison since August 2023. His party calls the remaining convictions political; most have been suspended or overturned on appeal.[1]
A family intermediary changes the price of the street
Aleema Khan is not the party chair, and she did not call the march. The person detained is the jailed founder's sister, a woman in her 70s. The party reads that as an attempt to silence her. The government has not yet put its own reason on the public record. The text that exists is a public-order order. That empties the days running to 27 September instead of opening a bargain on a release date. When the family intermediary is removed, the people who organise the march change; the demand itself does not.[1]
The 30-day span covers 27 September. If no court file replaces the detention before it lapses, the march proceeds without Aleema Khan. Party chairman Gohar Ali Khan told The News the march would stay peaceful and political and that the party did not want confrontation. The signal to watch is whether the Kot Lakhpat detention is converted into a criminal file, and whether the convoy to Islamabad actually leaves on 27 September.[1]