Situation outside Adiala Jail turned tense when law enforcement agencies unleashed water cannons on the sisters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and PTI workers outside Adiala Jail, during a sit-in protest outside Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi.
The video footages emerging on social media shows Rawalpindi police using water cannons late Tuesday night to disperse the protesters staging a sit-in protest outside the Adiala Jail demanding to meet Imran Khan. On Tuesday afternoon, Aleema Khan, Noreen Khan, and Uzma Khan along with party leaders and workers arrived outside Adiala Jail in an attempt to meet former Prime Minister Imran Khan. However, they announced a protest sitting after authorities denied them permission to meet.
Around 30 people including the sisters of Imran Khan and PTI activists and leaders were present with the sisters in a sit-in that lasted until 2.30 am on Tuesday night. The police used high-powered water cannon to disperse the protesters while the police seized the vehicles present there and shifted them to Rawalpindi police station. The police claims that most of these seized vehicles are government vehicles and belong to various departments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The official social media handles of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has released the footages of police crackdown outside Adiala Jail. The local journalists and police officers have indeed confirmed to the local media that water cannons were used to disperse.
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Water cannons were used in a late chilly winter night to disperse the protesters. The PTI, has strongly condemned the use of brute force by the protesters, and said that despite court orders, Imran Khan’s family was not allowed to meet him, which is why a sit-in was held outside Adiala jail. The official statement from the party says that not only is Imran Khan being deprived of his basic rights as a prisoner, but his constitutional rights to protest are also being violated.
In a video circulating on social media, Aleema Khan is seen encouraging people and asking them to not be afraid of water. According to the local journalist, at the start of the sit-in, there were a large number of PTI workers. But as the news circulated regarding the legal actions against the protestors, the number of protestors decreased. The police official says that the sisters of Imran Khan were informed strictly that they would not be allowed to meet Imran Khan and that they should end the sit-in, but they rejected the calls and went on with their sit-in protest.
Imran Khan’s sisters have now vowed to return to the next Tuesday to meet their brother. According to the local journalist, the protestors did not have food and drink and while the administration had closed hotels and markets within the two-kilometer radius of a Diyala jail in order to dissuade and disperse the protestors. The high-powered water cannons not only soaked the protestors but some protestors fell due to pressure on them. Meanwhile,
PTI MNA Shahid Khattak has also suffered a severe injury in his leg while saving the sisters of Imran Khan. There has been a widespread condemnation of the use of water cannons by police on the protesters on Tuesday night on social media. PTI chairman Barrister Gauhar was also stopped from meeting Imran Khan in Adiala jail.