Daily Times

Former Member National Assembly (MNA) Ali Wazir and advocate Imaan Mazari were arrested in the wee hours of Sunday by Islamabad police two days after they participated in a protest organised by the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM).

The authorities wanted both of them as part of an ongoing investigation.

According to the first information report (FIR) the two were arrested for staging a sit-in, resistance and interference in state affairs. The FIR stated that 700 to 800 people were in attendance and several were armed with sticks and some even with weapons as they attempted to defy the authorities and march on the capital. Subsequently, the report claimed the main highway, GT Road, was blocked by the protestors that proceeded to hold a rally in the middle of the road.

Furthermore, it said that when the security personnel tried to stop the participants, they attacked a government vehicle, engaged in altercations with the authorities and even managed to forcefully take an anti-riot kit away from an officer. “All actions will be executed according to the law,” said a police spokesperson rejecting allegations of any wrongdoing on the part of the police personnel. The spokesperson also said that only the police departments’ statements about the arrest should be considered correct. Only minutes before her arrest, Imaan had claimed on the social media platform X that “unknown persons” had broken into her home by “jumping over” the main gate and were trying to break her security cameras.

Meanwhile, her mother and former human rights minister under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI)’s regime Dr Shireen Mazari has claimed that “policewomen, plainclothes people” had broken into their residence and taken her daughter away.

She claimed the authorities also took away their security cameras, Imaan’s laptop and cellphone. “We asked who they had come for and they just dragged Imaan out,” said the former PTI leader, adding that “My daughter was in her night clothes and said let me change but they just dragged her away” and that too with “no warrants or legal procedure”. Terming the arrest as an “abduction” and as “state fascism”, Shireen Mazari strongly condemned the arrest.