The daughter of Pakistan’s former human rights minister Shireen Mazari, Imaan was arrested on Sunday (August 20) from her residence for alleged interference in state affairs, the police said.
A police personnel said that the activist was booked for interference in state affairs, staging a sit-in, and resistance.
Her mother Shireen Mazari, who quit the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, alleged that her daughter’s arrest was an “abduction” and said that plain clothes people “took my daughter away after breaking down our front door”.
She alleged that the people did not allow her daughter, who was “in her night clothes” to change, and termed the act “fascism”.
“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. Thus is an abduction,” Shireen said on platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Before her arrest, Imaan herself posted an update on X, sharing about “unknown persons” breaking down their home cameras, banging the gate, and jumping over.
Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission condemned Imaan’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 on X.
Imaan reportedly addressed a rally of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) in Islamabad last week and criticised the powerful military establishment.
Mazari has been vocal and was slapped with a criminal case last year for using abusive language against then Army chief Gen (retd.) Qamar Javed Bajwa.
Imaan was also highly critical of her 57-year-old mother when the latter was a minister in the PTI government.
Both of them had an open duel on X in October 2021 after Imaan accused former prime minister Imran Khan-led government of “using witchcraft” to run the state’s affairs.
(With PTI inputs)
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