Islamabad:
PTI leader Shibli Faraz, presented a request for contempt to the Court in the Superior Court of Islamabad (IHC) against several officials for violating a court order, allowing the founder of PTI imprisoned, Imran Khan, to meet with visitors twice a week.
In his request presented through Salman Akram Raja and Shoaib Shaheen, Shibli has argued that a larger IHC bank allowed to know the members of his family and leader of the party in the Adial prison of Rawalpindi on Tuesday and Thursday.
However, he lamented, the prison administration did not comply with the court order. The leader of PTI, who is also the opposition leader in the Senate, urged the court to initiate contempt against several respondents, including the interior of the secretary, the Secretary of the Interior of Punjab and the Superintendent of the Adiala prison.
On March 24, a larger bank of three members of the IHC resigned the biweekly meeting with visitors in Adiala Jail, but also imposed a prohibition of visitors to speak with the media after such meetings.
The bank, led by the interim president of Justice Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar and including Judge Arbab Muhammad Tahir and Judge Muhammad Azam Khan, said that only those people could meet the founder of PTI whose names were provided by Imran coordinator, Salman Akram Raja.
However, on March 27, the administration of the famous Rawalpindi prison, where Imran Khan was arrested since September 2023, did not allow PTI leaders to meet the founder of the party.
On Thursday, April 3, Adials prison authorities refused once again to allow PTI leader to meet Imran as a result of Eidul Fitr celebrations.
PTI leaders denied access to Imran
Adial prison administration once again challenged a court order and denied the leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf (PTI) to access its founding president, Imran Khan. This led to PTI’s leadership to seek judicial intervention, demanding the implementation of the order of the court, and even suggested that the judges should resign if they did not enforce it.
On Thursday, PTI leaders, including Omar Ayub Khan, Shibli Faraz, Aliya Hamza and Niaz Ullah Niazi, arrived at the Adiala prison to meet Imran Khan. Although the day was reserved for meetings and Imran himself ended the list of visitors, they were denied access.
Speaking to the media outside the Adiala prison, the opposition leader, Omar Ayub Khan, expressed his frustration for denial. “We do not know what instructions are being followed to prevent party leaders and family members from finding Imran Khan,” he said, added that Imran had not spoken with their children for more than two and a half months, nor had he seen their sisters.
Ayub also expressed his disappointment that Imran was not allowed to offer eid sentences, questioning: “In what kind of Islamic state are we living?” He accused the authorities of repeatedly compromising the contempt of the Court and expressed the hope that the judges would ensure that their orders would be made. “If judges cannot enforce their orders, they should resign,” he added.
In addition, he criticized the Provincial Government of Baluchistan for obstructing a PTI delegation when meeting with the BNP-M head, Akhtar Mengal, qualifying it as an unfair law. Ayub also commented on the deterioration of the situation of the law and order, stating: “We have repeatedly warned that the government had lost its order in eight districts.”
