Return of abducted lawyer for Pakistan’s jailed former leader sparks controversy 

 

FILE – Supporters of Pakistan's jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan rally, demanding his release from prison where he has been held for more than a year after being sentenced in multiple cases, on the outskirts of Islamabad, Sept. 8, 2024.

Islamabad —

A leading lawyer for Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan has resurfaced under mysterious circumstances nearly a month after his alleged “enforced disappearance.”

Police officials and Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party Sunday confirmed the overnight recovery of Intazar Ahmad Panjutha — who had gone missing on October 8 while returning home to Islamabad — amid allegations that government security agencies were involved.

Punjutha’s recovery occurred a day after Pakistan\’s attorney general assured a federal high court Friday that the lawyer "would be recovered within 24 hours" but did not provide further details.

However, police reported late Saturday that they intercepted a suspicious vehicle in the city of Hassan Abdul, northwest of the Pakistani capital, and recovered the lawyer, asserting that armed individuals who were with Panjutha opened fire at police from within the vehicle and fled.

A video later surfaced showing a visibly shaken and weak Panjutha sitting in a vehicle with his hands and feet tied. In a separate video, the lawyer can be seen breaking down in tears while telling police officers that his captors were demanding ransom and subjected him to severe custodial torture.

Khan’s party rejected the police claims and Panjutha’s video remarks, saying he was forced to make the statement and alleging again that the lawyer “was abducted by security forces.”

Salman Akram Raja, the secretary general of PTI, identified Panjutha as one of Khan\’s key lawyers in his ongoing legal battles.

“His condition, that spoke of the horror he had endured, was filmed and spread to cause fear. This is shameful,” Raja said in a video statement he released Sunday.

A police department spokesperson dismissed allegations of staging a fake encounter, asserting that officers rescued Panjutha from kidnappers demanding ransom.

Absa Komal, a prime-time news anchor at Pakistan\’s Dawn TV channel, commented on Panjutha’s video appearance and sympathized with him.

“He is unrecognizable — a changed man. The attorney general told the high court that he would be produced in 24 hours, and this is how he has been presented. Shame on the decision-makers,” Komal wrote on her social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Khan’s party members and supporters have been the subject of a government crackdown since he was removed from power through a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in 2022 and jailed a year later over controversial allegations of corruption and inciting violence against the Pakistani military, among dozens of other charges.

The 72-year-old deposed leader rejects the lawsuits as fabricated by the military after allegedly orchestrating his ouster from power, charges government and army officials reject.

Domestic and international human rights groups have lately intensified their criticism of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies, accusing them of engaging in a campaign of suppressing PTI and dissent at large.

Khan, cricket star-turned-prime minister, has led a campaign of defiance against the military since his ouster from power. Army generals have staged three coups and ruled Pakistan for over three decades since it gained independence in 1947.

Pakistan’s military and its intelligence agencies are frequently accused of influencing the rise or fall of elected governments through election rigging and pro-army political parties, charges army officials deny.

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Last month, more than 60 Democratic lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to President Joe Biden, urging him to secure the release of Khan and all other political prisoners in Pakistan.

The American lawmakers expressed their concern about what they denounced as the "ongoing widespread human rights violations" in the South Asian nation. Without naming Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s coalition government, the letter stated that “Pakistan\’s current system amounts to \’military rule with civilian facade.’”

Islamabad hit back at the letter, saying it is based on “an incorrect understanding of the political situation in Pakistan.”

 

By：VOA