In what circumstances was Imran Khan’s ‘first’ arrest?

The news of the possible arrest of the opposition party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has been in the news ever since the formation of the PDM coalition government.

But now, according to political analysts, there is a high possibility of his arrest in the Tosha Khana case.

In such a situation, we have looked at the circumstances under which the first and probably the only arrest of Imran Khan took place in the past.

Independent Urdu’s correspondent in Lahore, Fatima Ali, says that November 14, 2007 is still an important part of her memory.

Musharraf was away and there was a movement for the restoration of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and the police were behind Imran Khan.

Imran Khan was leading the student protest against the imposition of emergency in the country by the then military dictator.

Fatima had just entered journalism in those days and Express News sent her to Punjab University because Imran Khan was to meet the students there.

Imran Khan went to the university on the invitation of the students’ joint action committee.

He was afraid of being arrested for participating in the judiciary restoration movement, so he was trying to escape.

Fatima says that she was with her camera person Altaf outside the Center of High Energy Physics Department of the New Campus of the University of Punjab when suddenly a white vehicle which may have been a Bolan van arrived there and a man dressed in a white shalwar kameez came from inside. Imran Khan came out.

There was a rush of students from the University, Law College and Halle College.

Some students lifted Imran Khan on their shoulders and suddenly some other students came there and took him off his shoulders and started beating him. Then there was a stampede.

These students belonged to Jamiat-e-Islami students who got confused with Imran Khan there.

I saw with my own eyes that Imran Khan was tortured by the students and dragged inside the center building.

Meanwhile, Imran Khan’s face was full of worry. There was a strange noise and stampede everywhere.

The barred iron door of the department was locked.

I helped my fellow cameraman Altaf to climb this door.

From there he made a video which I saw, in which Imran Khan could be seen running inside the department grounds and the students behind him.

According to the information that journalists kept getting out about Imran Khan at that time, he was locked inside a room of the department for 45 minutes.

They were tortured there too. Imran Khan tried to run away from there and came outside in the ground.

The students managed to catch them and then put them in a car with white curtains and took them outside the university, where the police were waiting for them. Imran Khan was handed over to the police.

JI students had warned Imran Khan not to bring their campaign to the university, which has often been a hotbed of violent Islamist student activists since the 1980s.

A student said at the time, ‘It’s just for their protection. We are gathering students so that [انٹیلی جنس] Agencies could not enter the campus.

After his release, he told Michelle Norris of the American National Public Radio (NPR), “I was not told why they arrested me and then released me.”

When asked how he was treated in the jail, Imran Khan said that the police and jail staff took great care of him.

Even at that time, Imran Khan claimed in an interview that the policemen and prison staff were all sympathetic to him and agreed that ‘General Pervez Musharraf should have been here, not me.’

Imran Khan’s demand was for the restoration of judges of the Supreme Court. He used to say that the mere lifting of the state of emergency by Musharraf would not be satisfactory, he would also have to restore all the judges.

In this interview, he told about the conditions in the jail. “I haven’t eaten anything in the last 48 hours, tomorrow my party workers are coming and as we are going to protest, they want me to end my hunger strike.”

Waqas Iftikhar, Chairman of Overseas Pakistan Commission of Tehreek-e-Insaaf, who himself was a student at that time and a fan of Imran Khan, shared his memory of that day with us.

Waqas said that he was outside the university that day. Imran Khan was transferred to the university the night before. Hafizullah Niazi had made all the arrangements and under the fear of being arrested, he was kept at the house of a professor in the university. He slept there and came to the university from there.’

He further said that ‘I remember Imran Khan was brought out of the university in a bolan box and handed over to the police.

‘It was after this incident that the Insaaf Students Federation was formed and I was a central part of it.’

He said that Imran Khan was first sent to Kot Lakhpat Jail, after which he was transferred to Dera Ghazi Khan Jail.

The police had registered a case against Imran under Sections 124, 353, 149, 186, 148 of the Pakistan Penal Code, Section 16 of the Public Order Act and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

Imran was first taken to Iqbal Town Police Station and later transferred to Sabzazar Police Station and then to Civil Lines Police Station.

This time, how close Imran Khan is to arrest, only the government will know, but Imran Khan has often mentioned this four-day captivity in his speeches.