TAXILA: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader and former Punjab minister Syed Yawar Bukhari has said the treatment of party leader Zulfi Bukhari in Shahpur jail was the worst example of basic human rights violations.

Mr Bukhari was the first to have courted arrest as the PTI’s “Jail Bharo Tehreek” started on February 22. As many as 47 PTI workers and leaders who surrendered to the police were taken to Adiala jail and then shifted to Shahpur jail in Sargodha.

Talking to newsmen in Attock on Tuesday, the former minister criticised the government for allegedly treating Mr Bukhari as a ’criminal and terrorist.

He reaffirmed the commitment of PTI Chairman Imran Khan to fight against anti-democratic powers till restoration of real democracy through free and fair elections in the country.

The movement, according to the former minister, aimed at countering the “attack on constitutionally-guaranteed fundamental rights” and the “economic meltdown” by the incumbent government“.

He alleged that Mr Bukhari was deprived of basic human rights, adding mistreatment of a former special assistant to the prime minister in jail was a violation of the constitution and the law.

He alleged that Mr Bukhari was in the “illegal and improper custody” of the police and was not being provided with food and necessary medicine.

On the other hand, PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s son Zain Qureshi said the treatment meted out to his father in Attock jail was the worst example of the violation of fundamental human rights.

On the recommendation of the Lahore deputy commissioner, the Home Department has issued a detention notification for Mr Qureshi in Attock jail for one month under 3 MPO.

Talking to the media outside Attock jail, he alleged that the Attock jail administration was treating the PTI workers and leaders badly and keeping them with criminals.

Shah Zain Qureshi alleged that his father was being treated as a criminal in the jail, adding the cell where his father was imprisoned was full of lizards, cockroaches and rats where it was difficult to breathe.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2023