Pakistan police raid former PM Imran Khan's party office, arrest spokesman

Islamabad — Pakistan's police raided the imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan's political party office in Islamabad on Monday and arrested its spokesman for carrying out anti-state propaganda, the Interior Ministry said.

In a statement, the ministry said officers also arrested Ahmad Janjua, a media coordinator for Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or PTI party. Janjua was arrested over the weekend in a separate raid.

The arrests have drawn criticism from Gohar Ali Khan, the chairman of PTI, who said authorities also arrested some other workers of the party's media wing, in a series of police raids in recent weeks.

Pakistani authorities often accuse the PTI of running a campaign against the country's institutions, a reference to the military, a charge the party denies.

Khan has been embroiled in more than 150 cases since 2022 when he was ousted through a vote of no-confidence in the parliament.

He has been held at a prison in the garrison city of Rawalpindi since last year after his arrest.