Pakistan Detains Imran Khan's Sister Ahead of Sept. 27 PTI March
Police in Lahore detained Aleema Khanum, the sister of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, on Sunday afternoon, 20 September 2026. A police official confirmed the arrest to the BBC BBC. Reuters also reported the detention in Lahore ahead of the party's planned march Reuters.
The order came from Lahore's deputy commissioner, the senior district official. It alleges Khanum rallied Khan's supporters through social media and public meetings. It also accuses her of urging people toward actions that could disrupt public order and of chanting slogans against the government that officials called objectionable. The order sets 30 days in detention at Kot Lakhpat jail in Lahore.
Al Jazeera reported she was taken from her house Al Jazeera. Dawn reported the case was filed under the Maintenance of Public Order, or MPO, law Dawn. That law works like a preventive hold, letting district officials detain someone for a short period if they argue it is needed to keep public order.
Officials from Khan's party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), said the detention came ahead of protests in support of Imran Khan. The party called it an "illegal detention." Khanum's son, Shahrez Khan, demanded the government say where she is and ensure her safe return.
To understand that demand for whereabouts, it helps to know that early confusion about location is common after preventive detentions, even when an order names a jail.
The protests are planned across Pakistan on 27 September, including a march to Islamabad. Streets in the capital are lined with shipping containers to protect government buildings. The containers act as movable walls, a routine method in Islamabad to close roads and shield the high-security zone with parliament, ministries and embassies.
Imran Khan has been in detention since 2023. He was first sentenced to three years in prison for failing to declare money from selling gifts he received in office. He later received 14 years in a land corruption case, his longest sentence. Since then, Khanum has served as one of his main family messengers outside prison, passing on his messages and attending party events.
The broader context here is a struggle over who can bring people into the streets in the week before 27 September. Without a well-known family figure, PTI must rely more on social media and less-known local organizers. Those organizers may find it harder to keep turnout high under police pressure. For officials in Lahore and Islamabad, the 30-day order plus the container barriers point to a strategy of stopping disruption early rather than confronting crowds later.
Looking to what comes next, two questions will shape coverage. The first is whether PTI can coordinate protests in different cities and a march toward Islamabad without Khanum. The second is whether preventive detention calms tensions or deepens anger among supporters who see it as political. Both should become clearer as 27 September nears and officials spell out any further limits.
