Six more Adiala Jail staff arrested ‘for aiding and abetting’ Imran Khan

• According to sources, three of the arrested employees are women.
• The female staff passed messages between Imran and Bushra.
• The number of staff monitoring Adiala Prison has been increased.

RAWALPINDI: Following the arrest of former deputy superintendent of prisons, the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) have taken six more Adiala Jail staff into custody for allegedly helping Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan, sources said Geo News on Tuesday.

According to the sources, three members of the network of prison staff involved in allegedly assisting the former prime minister were women. The LEAs will investigate these staff.

The above-mentioned staff included a cleaner, two prison wardens and three officers who monitored the surveillance cameras on the prison premises, it said.

The sources said the female employees were passing messages between Imran and his wife Bushra Bibi in jail, adding that the mobile phones of all these employees were also seized.

In the meantime, it was said that the number of staff monitoring Adiala Prison had also been increased.

The sources said on August 14 that former deputy superintendent of Adiala Jail Muhammad Akram was taken into custody on charges of abetting the jailed PTI founder.

Akram was relieved of his post on June 20 and replaced by Deputy Attorney General Tahir Siddique Shah as Imran's security adviser.

The Punjab Home Department (Prisons Department) had issued a notice to Muhammad Akram and directed him to leave the department and report to the Prisons Department in Lahore.

Law enforcement authorities had begun interrogating the arrested senior officer of Rawalpindi Central Jail, also known as Adiala Jail.

According to the sources, Akram secretly conveyed the imprisoned PTI founder's messages outside the prison.

They said the LEAs had officially informed the Inspector General of Prisons, Punjab about the arrest and investigation against the senior police officer.

The 71-year-old former cricketer-turned-politician has been in jail for over a year after being accused in a host of cases, including the Toshakhana case, the Cipher case and the un-Islamic marriage case.

His wife Bushra Bibi has also been behind bars for months.

However, one court suspended his sentence in the Toshakhana case, while other courts overturned his convictions in the Chiffre case and I don't know cases.

Hopes of Khan and Bushra's release in July were dashed when the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) arrested them on fresh charges related to the sale of government gifts.

The chances of Imran's release from prison further diminished after Lahore police declared his arrest in several cases related to the May 9, 2023 riots that broke out after his detention on the Islamabad High Court (IHC) premises last year, during which protesters attacked government and military installations.