ISLAMABAD — The health of Noreen Niazi, the jailed sister of former prime minister Imran Khan, became a point of clash in the Senate this week, as the government said she was well after hospital treatment and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf called for her immediate release, according to Dawn.
Noreen Niazi, 70, was moved from Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology after jail doctors recommended the transfer, her lawyer Rana Mudassar Umer said. PTI said the family had not been informed of the move in advance, and the party’s central media department described the transfer without the family’s knowledge as extremely serious. PTI demanded that she receive the best medical care under cardiologists’ supervision.
The two sides gave different accounts of why she was moved. PTI parliamentary leader Barrister Ali Zafar told the Senate she had suffered a heart attack. Rana Sanaullah, the prime minister’s adviser on political affairs, told the Senate she had been moved for high blood pressure, had received immediate care, and that all her medical test results were normal and she was fine, according to Dawn. Zark News is reporting both accounts as claims by each side; no independent medical report was published in the coverage.
Noreen Niazi has been detained since September 21 with Khan’s other sisters, Aleema Khan and Uzma Khan, under the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960, on the orders of the Lahore deputy commissioner, Dawn reported. Their detention was extended on October 7 for a second 30-day term. PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said on October 29 that imprisoning non-political women was not part of the country’s traditions, that the arrests were increasing bitterness, and he called for the release of Noreen Niazi and her two sisters, according to Pakistan Point.
Separately, Gohar categorically rejected speculation about any deal or negotiations for Imran Khan’s release, saying the party was not engaged in bargaining and that Khan would rather remain in prison than accept a compromise that contradicted his position. In another parliamentary development, Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari urged the leader of the opposition to use authority he said Imran Khan had granted to return PTI lawmakers to National Assembly committees they left in August, so that work including electoral reform could proceed.
Khan, PTI’s founder, has been in jail for more than three years and still commands wide support, while his party’s planned protest politics and the detentions of his sisters have kept tensions high between the party and the government. What happens next will be watched in the Senate and in any court or detention review covering the sisters, whose current term runs into early November. For the Senate exchange, see the Dawn-sourced report on Rana Sanaullah’s Senate remarks.
