New Delhi: A day after former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) members on Sunday accused the authorities of denying his legal team access to the leader to get his signatures on essential documents for court purposes, reported news agency PTI.
Earlier on Saturday, Khan was arrested from his Zaman Park home in Lahore soon after an Islamabad trial court found him to be guilty of 'corrupt practices' in the Toshakhana corruption case. The court sentenced him to three years of prison.
Currently, Khan is lodged in the Attock Jail after being sentenced for concealing the sale of state gifts.
Khan's party PTI in a statement termed his arrest as an “abduction.”
The statement, which was shared on WhatsApp, read, “Chairman's legal team is not being given access to him for getting legal documents signed, as per the prerequisite, despite appeals made to Superintendent Attock Prison & Additional Home Secretary Punjab."
"This doesn't sound like an arrest at all, it sounds like an abduction,” it added, reported news agency PTI.
Khan was arrested from his Zaman Park residence in Lahore and was then taken by road to Attock City, the last major town of Punjab on the boundary with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
Initially after his arrest, it was expected that he would be kept in the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, but, for some security reasons, he was taken to Attock, news agency PTI reported.
Surprisingly, the news of his arrest failed to bring crowds of supporters on the streets this time, a stark contrast with his arrest on May 9 when thousands of them came out to protest against the detention.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who is leading PTI after Khan's arrest, in a video message urged workers to take to the streets but remain peaceful. “Peaceful protest is our right but no state asset is to be damaged. Don’t take the law in your hands,” he said.