File photo of Raoof Hasan, PTI Information Secretary
| Photo Credit: AFP

On July 22, Pakistan police arrested jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’sPakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) information secretary Rauf Hasan in a raid at the party’s central secretariat in Islamabad, stepping up the crackdown on the Opposition party.

Initially, it was reported that PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan was also arrested, but PTI spokesperson Zulfi Bokhari rejected the report about Khan’s arrest while confirming that Hasan had been arrested.

What charges were placed against Hasan, who was also attacked by unknown persons a few weeks ago leaving his face bruised, was not clear.

The party also condemned the move through its official X account and lambasted the Islamabad police.

“It’s absolutely shameful how Islamabad Police continues to completely mock and disregard every law in this country,” the party said. “The law of the jungle is reigning over Pakistan!” PTI leader Khurram Sher Zaman claimed that police personnel were confiscating documents and equipment from the party’s office.

“We’ve been informed that they’ve locked staff in a room & waiting for [the] prison van to arrive & have taken computers & important documents,” he wrote on X.

Earlier, SSP Hassan Jahangir Wattoo led the raid as the police encircled the PTI headquarters in the federal capital.

The raid comes just days after PTI’s international media coordinator Ahmad Waqas Janjua was arrested on Friday.

According to Bokhari, he was presented before the Anti-Terrorism Court in Islamabad, who handed him over to the police on a seven-day remand.

According to the charges, explosives were recovered from Janjua during his arrest and his links with banned organisations are to be investigated, police said in the court.