With sisters detained, Imran's other family members to reach Adiala for Tuesday meeting: PTI lawyer

ISLAMABAD: While incarcerated ex-prime minister Imran Khan’s sisters remain in detention , some other family members will reach Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail on Tuesday in a bid to meet him, a PTI lawyer told Dawn on Monday. Lawyer Awais Younas Chaudhry said the decision had been taken to show the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that its orders to ensure weekly meetings between Imran and his family were not being implemented. Imran has been in prison since 2023. The IHC has allowed Imran twice-a-week meetings — on Tuesdays and Thursdays — with his family, lawyers and other associates. Despite the order, the PTI founder has been restricted restricted from meeting visitors. The Supreme Court (SC) also directed authorities on Aug 18 to allow him meetings with his family as it ordered Imran’s medical checkup at Islamabad’s Shifa International Hospital, a private facility.

After the SC’s interim order, one of Imran’s sisters, Noreen Niazi, was allowed two consecutive meetings with him. But there has been no other meetings since her last one on August 25. Noreen, as well as Imran’s other two sisters, Aleema Khan and Uzma Khan — who used to reach Adiala every week in the hopes to meet him — have now been detained by the authorities under the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960 ahead of the PTI’s Sept 27 protest call. Now, the PTI has decided that some other family members would reach Adiala on Tuesday for a meeting with Imran, Chaudhry, who submits lists of party leaders and lawyers to the jail administration for the weekly meetings, said. “We are not expecting that the orders of the IHC will be implemented, but lawyers and Imran’s family members will still reach Adiala,” he said. The lawyer added that several of Imran’s family members could reach Rawalpindi, “but we…