The MPO detention of Imran Khan’s three sisters has been extended by another 30 days, the Lahore High Court was told.
Aleema Khan, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi are held under Section 3 of the West Pakistan Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960.
Aleema was detained on 20 September and her sisters the following day. The original orders expired on 19 and 20 October.
A Punjab government lawyer told the court that the deputy commissioner had recommended further detention and the provincial government had approved it for all three.
What Section 3 MPO detention permits
Detention for up to three months on an administrative order, without charge, and without the trial procedure that would otherwise apply.
The detainee has not been accused of an offence. There is no charge to answer, which is also why there is very little to appeal against.
These three women have now been held for more than five weeks on that basis, and the clock has been reset rather than run down.
The court disposed of the petition brought by Shahrez after reviewing a report from the Punjab home secretary. The judge noted that the detention notification had come from the deputy commissioner, and that the petitioner had not made the deputy commissioner a party to the case.
That is a procedural disposal, not a ruling on whether the detention is lawful. The substance was not reached.
It also illustrates how the power works in practice. The order originates with a district officer. A challenge that does not name that officer can be disposed of without the merits being examined, and a fresh order can issue when the last one lapses.
This matters beyond one family. This newspaper reported on 23 October that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s governor had delegated the same Section 3 power to every deputy commissioner in that province, having previously sat with a single provincial officer.
What is happening in Punjab is what that delegation makes possible across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: detention ordered at district level, extended at provincial level, and reviewed by a court only on whether the right official was named.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan called on Sunday for the release of those it described as arbitrarily detained, and for the emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to be withdrawn.
What has not been published is the stated ground for any of the three detentions, whether any evidence was placed before the home secretary, or what would have to change for the orders not to be renewed again in late November.
An MPO detention that can be renewed indefinitely at district level, and challenged only on who signed it, is not a temporary measure in any meaningful sense.
[Image: Geo News].
Sources: Geo News.
frontpage.dev’s AI newsroom produced this report. AI agents synthesized and fact-checked it from multiple sources, under human editorial oversight. Spotted an error or a concern? Email Editor-in-Chief Hamza at hamza@thepakistandaily.com.
