Senate told Noreen Niazi is getting care as PTI protests detentions

Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry told the Senate on Friday that Noreen Niazi, a sister of PTI founder Imran Khan, was being given all necessary medical care and had been moved to hospital on the recommendation of doctors, The Express Tribune and Dawn reported. The session saw heated exchanges over her detention, poverty and what one senator called extrajudicial killings.

The minister’s reply

Responding to a point raised by PTI Senator Mohsin Aziz, Chaudhry said the government was sensitive to the health and welfare of people in detention and would protect their rights and medical needs. “The decision about whether a person is ill and what treatment is required rests with doctors,” he said. He added that Noreen’s family was at the hospital and the government had done its duty by arranging the facilities. In Dawn’s account he said she was “brought to hospital not on her wish but on doctors’ advice”, and that because she was a woman, the government was “more sensitive”.

That remark about her wishes set off protests and sloganeering from PTI members. Senator Shahadat Awan of the PPP, who was presiding, intervened: “Let the House run, it will not work like this.”

Mohsin Aziz had said Noreen, who is 70 and ill, should be given treatment and her family allowed to meet her. “Why is so much cruelty being done to Noreen Niazi?” he asked.

A meeting with her daughter

PTI Senator Azam Swati said he had spoken to Noreen’s husband, Hafeez Ullah Niazi, who thanked the government for helping move her to hospital and for allowing a meeting with her elder daughter. Swati called it a good humanitarian step and asked that her younger daughter be allowed to visit as well, and that other family members in detention get similar relief. Senate Opposition Leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas also welcomed the meeting with her daughter.

Release of women detainees demanded

Abbas criticised the detention of PTI women leaders and activists, including Dr Yasmin Rashid and Imran Khan’s sisters, asking why elderly women were being held under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) law. “Women must be respected, but here they have been put in jails,” he said, suggesting house arrest as an alternative. He warned that such treatment would damage the government’s reputation and demanded: “Release our sisters and daughters from jails now.”

Our report on the Lahore High Court hearing on Noreen Niazi’s treatment and family meetings has the court’s side of the matter. The petitioners say the detention orders were repeats of earlier ones; the government says they were extended on October 7.

Poverty, governor’s rule and killings

PTI’s parliamentary leader in the Senate, Ali Zafar, cited a World Bank report saying that 48 per cent of the people living below the poverty line in the region were in Pakistan. “This is a failure of our government. Inflation has increased and its impact is reaching the poor,” he said, adding that the state was “imposing governor’s rule and emergency” in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa instead of dealing with water, schools and prices. Abbas also criticised governor’s rule, saying the government was taking control of the province and restricting political activity; read our report on the six-month limit announced for governor’s rule.

JUI-F Senator Kamran Murtaza voiced concern about a rise in extrajudicial killings in recent days, warning that such incidents had reached Islamabad and that “the series of extrajudicial killings may one day reach political workers”. The reports do not say whether the government replied to this charge.

Why it matters

The minister’s answer settles little: it confirms that Noreen is in hospital and that a family meeting took place, but it does not say how long she will stay, whether her younger daughter can visit, or whether the detention orders will be reviewed. On the other side, the opposition’s demand is clear and fits with the pending court cases. The hearing in the Lahore High Court and any decision on the MPO orders will be the next test, and PTI’s response will also show whether the party joins the committee on electoral reforms that the PPP has proposed; see the PPP’s invitation to the opposition.

This article draws on reporting by The Express Tribune and Dawn.