Lahore:

Pakistan’s ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan on Sunday vowed to take legal action against “every single officer” involved in the brutal thrashing of party workers during a raid and search operation at his Zaman Park residence here.

While Khan was in Islamabad to attend a court on Saturday, more than 10,000 armed Punjab Police personnel launched a massive operation at his Zaman Park residence and arrested dozens of his supporters. The police claimed to have recovered weapons and petrol bombs from Khan’s house.

Khan’s supporters occupied his residence late on Saturday night when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman returned from Islamabad after attending a hearing in the Toshakhana case.

Addressing the nation, Khan on Sunday said he would take legal action against the Punjab Police, including “every single officer” who participated in the “attack” on his residence.

Heavy machinery was used by the Punjab Police to break into Khan’s residence. Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi was present in the house during the police raid.

The 70-year-old former prime minister said, “I want to ask everyone, police, army officers, judges and people of this country, about the respect of chadar and char diwari (veil and wall) in Islam.” Talking about raiding his house.

Khan said he wanted to address the nation last night but was not angry. “And when a man is angry he should not talk.” He accused the Punjab IG of violating Lahore High Court (LHC) orders, saying he had referred an anti-terrorism court to obtain a search warrant, while a high court judge had already ordered the search. The process was set. his house.

He said that his party would initiate contempt proceedings in the court and would also take legal action against caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi.

Later senior PTI leader Fawad Chaudhary said that the party has sent a letter to the Chief Secretary of Punjab to register cases against PML-N’s main organizer Maryam Nawaz, Naqvi, Inspector General of Police of Punjab Dr. Usman Anwar, police officer of the capital city of Lahore. was requested to do. Bilal Siddiqui Kamyana and 18 other police officers for “assault and robbery in Zaman Park”.

Chowdhary said PTI had also requested a judicial commission on the Zaman Park operation and the death of party worker Ali Bilal.

Khan first questioned the officials under which law they broke the gate, felled trees and entered the house. What was worse, he said, was that the police raided his house after he appeared in the Islamabad court.

“Bushra Bibi, a completely private non-political person, was alone at home. This is a complete violation of the Islamic principle of chadar and chaar divari sanctity.” [veil and walls]Khan said in a series of tweets.

He said the issue of contempt, violation of the sanctity of the house and violence against his servants and domestic workers would be taken up in the court.

During the address, Khan announced that the party would hold a show of strength at Minar-e-Pakistan – the same place where he launched his campaign for the 2013 polls – on Wednesday. He said it would be a “referendum” on where the nation stood.

Meanwhile, the Lahore police on Sunday booked Khan and over 1,000 PTI workers on charges of terrorism in two cases. The number of cases against Khan has gone up to 97.

Police claimed to have recovered rifles, Kalashnikov, bullets, marbles and petrol bombs from his house during the search operation.

The police had also removed all the encroachments in Zaman Park for the past several months and destroyed the “bunker” built to attack law enforcement agencies.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said the government would consult its legal team to assess whether a process could be initiated to ban Khan’s party.

Sanaullah said, “Terrorists were hiding in Zaman Park. Weapons, petrol bombs etc have been recovered from Imran Khan’s residence, which is enough evidence to file a case against PTI for being a terrorist organisation.”

On the government’s plan to start the process of declaring PTI as a banned organisation, the minister said: “Primarily it is a judicial process to declare any party as proscribed. However, we will consult our legal team on this issue.” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif appeared to agree with his niece PMN-L’s senior vice-president Maryam Nawaz’s claim that Khan’s party was a “terrorist organisation”.

“If anyone had any doubts, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Niazi’s actions in the last few days have exposed his fascist and extremist tendencies,” Sharif said.

Police on Sunday secured one-day remand of over 100 PTI workers arrested during Saturday’s operation.

As the Punjab Police has completely withdrawn security from the PTI chief, the Gilgit-Baltistan province where his party is in power is providing him security.

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran was disqualified by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in October last year for not sharing details of the sale. The apex election body later filed a complaint in the district court to punish him under criminal laws for selling gifts received as the country’s prime minister.

Khan was ousted from power in April last year after losing a no-confidence vote, becoming the first Pakistani prime minister to be voted out by the National Assembly.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)