Sister of jailed former Pakistan PM Imran Khan detained in Lahore
Pakistani authorities detained Aleema Khan, a sister of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, at her home in Lahore on Sunday, a week before Khan’s party planned a march to Islamabad demanding his release, according to a copy of the detention order and Khan’s party.
The Lahore deputy commissioner’s office ordered Aleema Khan held for 30 days under the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance of 1960, a law that permits preventive detention and limits judicial review of such orders. The Sept. 20 order, a copy of which was reviewed by Dawn newspaper, also named a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party member, Muhammad Ameer, for detention. Police sources told Dawn she was taken to Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore.
The party, known as PTI, said the arrest was part of a wider crackdown on its members in Punjab province ahead of the Sept. 27 protest march, which it has called to demand Khan’s release and, it says, to affirm constitutional supremacy. District authorities in Punjab had issued similar preventive-detention orders against dozens of party workers in the preceding week, including 31 people named in one notification and 14 more in Toba Tek Singh district, according to Dawn.
The detention order cited police and intelligence reports alleging that Aleema Khan and Ameer had taken part in road blockades and protests on May 9, 2023, when PTI supporters demonstrated after Khan’s arrest, and had encouraged workers to damage public and government property. The order also alleged the two had used social media and public gatherings to mobilize workers and raise slogans capable of provoking unrest. A district intelligence committee endorsed the police material and recommended the detention, the order said, concluding that her presence in public could pose “a grave threat to public safety.”
Family and party accounts
PTI called the arrest illegal and said Aleema Khan, who is in her 70s, was taken from outside her home. Her son, Shahrez Khan, wrote on social media platform X that she was “abducted” after leaving home Sunday morning and that the family had no information on her whereabouts; he said she was already free on bail in all cases against her and asked authorities to disclose her location.
Early Monday, PTI’s central information secretary, Sheikh Waqas Akram, said two more of Khan’s sisters, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi, along with other relatives, had also been detained and placed in an armored vehicle bound for an undisclosed location. A separate Sept. 20 order from the Lahore deputy commissioner’s office, also reviewed by Dawn, directed that Noreen Niazi and Uzma Khan be held for 30 days under the same ordinance, on similar grounds that they were “prejudicial to the public safety and maintenance of public order.” Khan’s son Kasim Khan wrote on X that authorities had “broken into my aunties and cousins houses and forced them into vehicles with no explanation,” calling the episode “a disgrace.”
Following Aleema Khan’s arrest, another sister, Noreen Niazi, held a news conference in Lahore alongside a lawyer for the family and said Aleema Khan had been “picked up” along with her driver, whose vehicle was later found parked at a police station. She described the timing as pressure ahead of the Sept. 27 march and said the protest would go ahead regardless.
PTI chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan said the party’s planned march would be “peaceful and political” and called on the government to release Aleema Khan immediately. An opposition alliance, Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayin-i-Pakistan, said the detention amounted to “state oppression and political revenge” by the Punjab government. A provincial minister from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where PTI governs, said the move against what he called a “non-political woman” reflected the ruling party’s unease ahead of the march. Reuters reported that a senior Lahore police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the arrest but gave no further detail. Punjab’s provincial government, led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, had not issued a public response to Sunday’s detention as of Monday, beyond the reasoning set out in the deputy commissioner’s order.
Background
Imran Khan, 73, has been imprisoned since August 2023 on a series of convictions that his party says were politically motivated; all but one have since been suspended or overturned on appeal. His family and party have raised concern in recent months over his health, particularly a condition affecting his right eye that has required specialist treatment. His sons, Sulaiman and Kasim Khan, have said their father has appeared “agitated” and has been suffering from “severe anxiety.” Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered last month that he be transferred to the privately run Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad for treatment. Access to Khan in Adiala jail in Rawalpindi has at times been restricted; his family and party members were barred from visiting for more than three weeks starting in November 2025, a period that prompted protests and court proceedings, according to a summary of his imprisonment compiled by Wikipedia editors citing news reports.
Aleema Khan has been a prominent public face of the campaign for her brother’s release and has previously faced legal proceedings tied to PTI protests, including cases in which Pakistani courts issued repeated arrest warrants against her over her absence from hearings.
What follows
PTI has said it intends to proceed with its Sept. 27 march to Islamabad. It was not independently confirmed by Monday where Aleema Khan, Uzma Khan or Noreen Niazi were being held, nor whether any of the three had been presented before a court, as PTI has demanded. The party’s claim that additional relatives, including children, were detained alongside the two sisters had not been confirmed by police or independently verified at the time of publication.
Sources
Facts on the detention orders and their stated grounds are drawn primarily from Dawn, which reviewed copies of the orders; the arrest itself and PTI’s account are corroborated by Reuters and Al Jazeera. Party and family statements are attributed to PTI officials and relatives directly.
Wire services and international press
- Reuters, “Police arrest Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan’s sister in Lahore ahead of party’s planned march.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/police-arrest-pakistan-ex-pm-094703028.html
- Al Jazeera, “Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s sister arrested before planned PTI march.” https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/20/former-pakistan-pm-imrans-sister-arrested-ahead-of-planned-pti-march
Local press (proceedings and documents)
- Dawn, “PTI claims more of Imran’s family ‘arrested’ following Aleema’s detention.” https://www.dawn.com/news/2031544/pti-claims-more-of-imrans-family-arrested-following-aleemas-detention
- Dawn, “PTI up in arms after Aleema imprisoned before demo on 27th.” https://www.dawn.com/news/2031453/pti-up-in-arms-after-aleema-imprisoned-before-demo-on-27th
- The Express Tribune, “Imran’s sister detained ahead of PTI protest.” https://tribune.com.pk/story/2630460/imrans-sister-detained-ahead-of-pti-protest
- The Express Tribune, “PTI says Imran Khan’s two sisters, relatives detained by police in Lahore.” https://tribune.com.pk/story/2630519/pti-says-more-of-imrans-sisters-family-detained-by-police-in-lahore
- The Express Tribune, “K-P minister condemns Aleema Khan’s arrest.” https://tribune.com.pk/story/2630513/k-p-minister-condemns-aleema-khans-arrest
Background and prior proceedings
- Wikipedia, “Imprisonment of Imran Khan” (accessed Sept. 21, 2026). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprisonment_of_Imran_Khan
- The Tribune (India)/ANI, “Pak: Rawalpindi ATC withdraws arrest warrants for Aleema Khan, seeks response on frozen assets.” https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/world/pak-rawalpindi-atc-withdraws-arrest-warrants-for-aleema-khan-seeks-response-on-frozen-assets
Editor’s note on sourcing An unnamed Lahore police official’s confirmation of the arrest, reported by Reuters, is included without further identifying detail because the source spoke on condition of anonymity. PTI’s claim that children were among those detained alongside Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi rests on party statements and a relative’s social media post; it has not been independently corroborated by police or other sources and is presented here as an allegation. No on-the-record statement from the Punjab provincial government responding specifically to Sunday’s detention was located at the time of writing; the government’s stated justification is drawn from the text of the deputy commissioner’s order itself. A 2025 statement by Punjab Information Minister Azma Bukhari denying an earlier, separate reported detention of Aleema Khan was not used, as it concerns a different incident from April 2025 and could otherwise be misread as a response to this arrest.
