As Imran Khan completes 100 days in jail, his party urges apex court to ensure justice for him

Lahore: As Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan completes 100 days in jail, his party on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to ensure his immediate release and stop the trampling of the Constitution by the state.

"From being shot in an assassination attempt to his house being attacked, vandalised, tear gassed & now illegally incarcerated in a small cell while being denied access to justice, Imran Khan has stood on his principles and remained true to every word and claim of his," the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said in a statement.

Khan, 71, has been in the Adiala Jail, Rawalpindi after he was shifted there on September 26 from the District Jail Attock where he was taken after his arrest on August 5 following his conviction in the Toshakhana corruption case.

His close aide and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, 67, arrested in the cipher case, is imprisoned in the same jail. Khan and Qureshi have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

"History will remember Khan for standing on the right side when it mattered, along with over 10,000 other prisoners of conscience, and those who sacrificed their lives for Pakistan’s Haqeeqi Azadi (real freedom)," the PTI statement said.

The PTI said Khan is being punished for sticking to his principles and due to his uncompromising nature and firm stance to restore the sanctity of the Constitution and uphold the supremacy of the rule of law in the country.

It demanded the immediate release of the former cricketer-turned-politician and said the process to crush Khan's party using state power should be abandoned immediately.

"The state had been trampling the Constitution, law and values under its feet for the last 20 months to break Khan’s morale. He is being subjected to the worst cruelty, brutality and bullying, but all the tactics are proving to be unsuccessful," the party said.

It urged the Supreme Court to save the state from a major disaster and ensure free and fair polls.

The Election Commission of Pakistan has announced that general elections will be held on Feb 8, 2024.

All political parties except the PTI are allowed to run their election campaigns. The caretaker government and state machinery are not allowing the PTI to launch an election campaign in any part of the country.

Police recently arrested over 200 PTI workers in Lahore in a fresh crackdown against the PTI to stop it from running a political campaign.

"The party leadership believes an election without giving equal opportunities to the PTI will neither be accepted by most Pakistanis nor the world at large and will serve as a pain in the neck for both the new government and the establishment," PTI’s central deputy secretary information Aamer Mughal said.

Khan, who served as prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to April 2022, is accused of misusing the contents of the cipher to build a narrative that his government was ousted due to a conspiracy hatched by the US, a charge denied by Washington.

Khan was removed through a vote of no-confidence in April 2022. More than 150 cases have been filed against Khan since his ouster from power.