Imran Khan, the former prime minister of Pakistan, has refused to allow a search operation of Zaman Park, a PTI stronghold in Islamabad. The government has accused PTI of harboring terrorists in the park, but Khan has denied the allegations.
Police and government officials had arrived at the former prime minister and international cricket star’s home. Agreeing on the terms of the search was part of the latest wrangle between Khan and authorities amid deepening political instability in the country of 220 million people.
Police allege that Khan was sheltering between 30 to 40 suspects linked to the violence and had threatened to raid the premises under a court order to detain them. However, authorities said they would only start the search for suspects after agreeing on terms and conditions.
Khan has refused to allow a search until his stipulations are met. He said he feared that, if unsupervised, police might plant weapons and that a search could only be conducted by a panel set up by a high court. He also said a female officer should accompany the team.
The seventy-year-old home, in the Zaman Park neighborhood of Lahore, was a site of battles between his supporters and police who had tried to arrest him in March for not showing up in court.
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