â Uzma Khan and â Noreen Niazi Khan, sisters â of PakistanâÂÂs jailed âÂÂformer Prime Minister Imran Khan, have been â released from â prison, their lawyer and KhanâÂÂs political party said.
âÂÂDr Uzma Khan and Ms Noreen Niazi have been released. They have arrived home safely,â lawyer Mudassar Umer said in a post on X on Thursday.
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The sisters were released from Kot Lakhpat maximum-security prison in Lahore, nearly two months after they were arrested. A third sister, Aleema Khan, who was detained the same day as Uzma and Noreen, remains in jail, Imran Khan partyâÂÂs the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said.
âÂÂAleema Khan remains behind bars. The release of two sisters does not end the injustice or erase the suffering inflicted on Imran KhanâÂÂs family,â PTI leader and close Khan confidant Zulfiqar Bukhari told Al Jazeera.
âÂÂThe demand is clear: No selective relief, no intimidation, and no further persecution.âÂÂ
Uzma KhanâÂÂs son, Wali Khan, called for an explanation as to why his mother had been detained for â 53 days and then released, saying the decisions were â not based in law. âÂÂTheir jailing was arbitrary, and so is their release,â he said in a post on X.
The sisters were arrested and placed under 30-day detention orders a week before a planned PTI protest march on September 27 to demand their brotherâÂÂs release.
Imran Khan, 74, has been jailed since August 2023ÃÂ following a series of convictions his party calls politically motivated. All but one have since been suspended or overturned on appeal.
Concerns over his health, in particular theÃÂ condition of his right eye, which has required months of specialist treatment, have driven the PTI campaign to demand his release.
His sistersâ release comes a day after Khan was taken to hospital in Islamabad, where â he was given medical treatment.
PakistanâÂÂs government said it detained the sisters because they could have been a threat to âÂÂlaw and order ahead of the planned march on Islamabad, which ultimately did not go ahead.
The federal government suspended the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government, led by KhanâÂÂs party, that had been organising the demonstration.