Pakistani human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari and former lawmaker Ali Wazir were arrested and remanded to police custody for unlawful gathering, resistance and “interference in state affairs”, just a day after former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi- a close aide of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan- was taken into custody under the Official Secrets Act. Imaan Mazari is the daughter of former human rights minister Shireen Mazari. She participated in a protest organised by the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM), which advocates the rights of ethnic Pashtuns. Imaan Mazari is seen.

According to the FIR, she was arrested for staging a sit-in, resistance and interference in state affairs. At the protest, 700 to 800 people were in attendance and several were armed with sticks and some even with weapons, the FIR stated, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

When security personnel tried to stop the participants, they attacked a government vehicle, the report claimed.

Imaan Mazari will be kept in the women's police station till Monday by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD). Just minutes before her arrest, she had claimed on 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.

Her mother Shireen Mazari termed the arrest an "abduction" and said some people “took my daughter away after breaking down our front door”.

"Taking away our security cameras and her laptop and cell. We asked who they had come for and they just dragged Imaan out. They marched all over the house. My daughter was in her night clothes and said let me change but they just dragged her away. Of course no warrants or any legal procedure. State fascism. Remember we are only 2 women living in the house. This is an abduction," Shireen Mazari said on platform X.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned Imaan Mazari's arrest and demanded her immediate and unconditional release.

“The manner in which the Islamabad Police broke into her home, allegedly without a warrant, is unacceptable and points to a larger, more worrying pattern of state-sanctioned violence against people exercising their right to freedom of expression and assembly,” it said.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mallika Soni When not reading, this ex-literature student can be found searching for an answer to the question, "What is the purpose of journalism in society?" ...view detail