Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan is set to engage directly with the public in a live Twitter Space session, as well as through Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube tonight at 9pm.

Shireen Mazari, a close aide of former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan was arrested on Monday, hours after she was released from a prison on the orders of a top court.

The Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) directed authorities to set Mazari free if she was not required under any other case.

Mazari, 72, served as the minister for human rights from 2018 to 2022, under Khan’s regime.

Her lawyer Ahsan Pirzada, however, said she was arrested by the Punjab Police moments after being released from the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.

"This was the fourth time in ten days that Mazari was taken into custody," Pirzada tweeted.

"We have no idea where they have taken her. This is the second time she has been arrested from outside Adiala Jail as soon as the court ordered her release," he said in another tweet.

Mazari was arrested on May 12 from her residence in Islamabad as part of a crackdown launched by the federal government on Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf: supporters following the May 9 attacks on military installations and government buildings.

Khan, the chairman of the PTI, has lamented the Mazari’s re-arrest, saying that such actions by the government showed the “plight of the mighty”.

In an address to supporters via Twitter Spaces, Khan likened the oppression of his party workers to the genocide in Nazi Germany.

He said that the crackdown on his party under the pretext of arson during the May 9 protests was “uncalled for”.

“PTI has been advocating peaceful protests for the past 27 years. Why would the country’s largest party want violence?” “We don’t. It is someone else who wants violence,” Khan added.

On May 9, Khan, 70, was arrested by the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers in a corruption case while he was at the Islamabad High Court premises that triggered unrest across the country.

For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the protesters stormed the army headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi and also torched a corps commander’s house in Lahore.

Mazari’s daughter Imaan Mazari-Hazir had earlier challenged the arrest in the LHC.

The judge had ruled that Mazari should be set free if not named in any case and directed the former minister to submit an affidavit to the deputy commissioner that she will not be involved in any such disruptive activity in the future.

“The government should think and not destroy homes like this,” Mazari-Hazir said.

The former minister’s re-arrest comes after a series of arrests of several other PTI leaders, including Khan, Asad Umar, Fawad Chaudhry, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Omer Cheema, Ali Mohammad Khan, Senator Ejaz Chaudhry and others.

All of these leaders other than cricketer-turned-politician Khan were arrested under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO), after widespread violence by the supporters of the PTI chief who took to the streets after his arrest.

Mazari has been a vocal critic of Pakistan’s military and the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan’s Parliament, on Monday passed a resolution vowing to try May 9 rioters, who were involved in attacks on military and state installations, under the existing laws including the Army Act and the Anti-Terrorism Act.

The resolution, which was moved by Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, has been adopted by the House after a majority of lawmakers voted in favour of it.

Also read: Imran Khan receives luxury tax notice of PKR 14 lakhs for Lahore residence

First Published:May 22, 2023 8:54 PM IST