Pakistan: former human rights minister arrested over land grabbing allegation

Pakistan’s former human rights minister was arrested on Saturday in the capital over a decades-old land grabbing allegation, her daughter and another former minister said.

Shireen Mazari, who served in the cabinet-level position under former prime minister Imran Khan, was detained by police near her Islamabad home, daughter Imaan Mazari said in a tweet.

She said: “Male police have beaten and taken my mother away and I have been told that anti-corruption wing of Lahore has arrested her.”

Footage on local Geo TV showed female police officers detaining Mazari. There was no immediate comment from Pakistani police.

Fawad Chaudhry, former information minister in Khan’s administration, said on Geo TV that Mazari was manhandled during the arrest by anti-corruption police. He alleged the senior leader in Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party had been politically targeted by the new administration of prime minister Shahbaz Sharif under the guise of a land dispute allegation dating back to 1972.

Mazari has been critical of Sharif’s government in tweets since Khan’s government was toppled in a no-confidence vote in parliament last month. Khan is mobilising supporters through public rallies across the country to pressure the government into an early election.