The family’s account describes officers ordering subordinates in Urdu to seize people and shove them roughly into vehicles, language the statement cites as evidence of the “deeply disrespectful, intimidating, and highly unprofessional” conduct of the raid.

Islamabad:

Three sisters of jailed former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan remain in custody after a night of raids, detentions, and what the family describes as a campaign of intimidation targeting women, children, and domestic staff, an episode that has become a flashpoint just days before the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party’s planned countrywide march to Islamabad on September 27.

According to a detailed statement issued by Imran Khan’s family and reviewed for this report, the ordeal began on the morning of September 20, when Aleema Khan left her Lahore home for what the family called a personal errand and never returned. By early afternoon, her car had been located and abandoned at Mozang Police Station, and by evening it had emerged that she was being held under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, a colonial-era law that the family’s statement calls a tool used to bypass due process, silence dissent, intimidate political opponents, and suppress peaceful political activity.

Police then converged in force on the residential street where Aleema Khan’s house stands, cordoning off both entrances and, as the family described, harassing relatives and children as they tried to come and go. By around 1:30 am on September 21, roughly 200 officers reportedly forced their way into the property, detaining household staff and searching room by room for Aleema’s other sisters, Dr Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi. When the two women were not found there, officers allegedly moved next door, breaking down a bedroom door to detain them along with Noreen’s daughter.

The family’s account describes officers ordering subordinates in Urdu to seize people and shove them roughly into vehicles, language the statement cites as evidence of the “deeply disrespectful, intimidating, and highly unprofessional” conduct of the raid. It also alleges that officers deliberately located and destroyed CCTV equipment throughout the properties, briefly detaining Aleema Khan’s son Shahrez Khan’s wife and terrifying two young children, ages two and seven, in the process before releasing her only when the toddler would not stop crying.

By roughly 2:10 am, the family said, those detained, including Uzma Khan, Noreen Niazi, and several younger relatives, were taken to Chaburji Police Station for identification. Around 3:45 am, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi were separated from the rest and transferred to jail, where they remain. The statement said the family and their lawyers have had no contact with either woman since.

Independent reporting broadly corroborates the family’s timeline. News outlets covering the arrests confirmed that Lahore’s deputy commissioner issued 30-day preventive detention orders against the sisters under the Public Order law, with officials asserting their presence at public gatherings would risk a “breach of public peace.” PTI has characterised the detentions as kidnapping and a direct attempt to decapitate the party’s organising capacity before its planned march.

The timing is central to how PTI and independent observers are reading events. The party has called supporters nationwide to converge on Islamabad on September 27 to demand Imran Khan’s release from Adiala jail, where he has remained since his 2023 arrest, and to press what it calls a campaign for constitutional supremacy. 

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has publicly warned the party against proceeding, cautioning that PTI could not “achieve anything through such drama” and urging leaders to step back before matters became irreversible.

For PTI and Khan’s family, the detentions fit a now-familiar pattern dating to the violent unrest that followed Khan’s first arrest in May 2023, when attacks on military installations triggered a sweeping crackdown, mass arrests of party workers, and prosecutions of senior leaders, several of whom, including Khan’s own nephews, have since been jailed or convicted. 

Critics of the government describe this as evidence of an entrenched security establishment determined to keep Khan and his movement contained by any means; the government insists its actions are lawful responses to genuine threats to public order.

With less than a week before the planned march, the fate of Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi and whether authorities move against other family members or PTI organisers is likely to shape whether the September 27 mobilisation goes ahead as planned or becomes the latest demonstration to be preemptively squeezed off the streets.