ISLAMABAD: In a major blow to embattled former Prime Minister Imran Khan, one of the most senior members of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Shireen Mazari, announced on Tuesday she was quitting the party and "active politics," the most-high profile in a long line of aides to abandon the opposition politician this month as he faces off the federal government and the army.
Mazari was arrested for the fourth time on Monday, hours after a Pakistani court ordered her release. The Khan aide, first arrested on May 12, was subsequently nabbed by police on May 16 and May 18 despite court orders calling her arrest illegal.
The 72-year-old is among several members of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party who were arrested after angry mobs attacked military installations, set fire to government buildings, and smashed buses to protest Khan’s detention on corruption charges on May 9, with the party saying more than 7,000 of its supporters have been arrested during the crackdown.
Speaking at a press conference in Islamabad, Mazari denounced the violence that erupted in the aftermath of Khan's arrest and everyone should condemn it, particularly around the building that are symbolic to the state.
"I have called this press conference for two things. Firstly, I condemn the violence that erupted on 9th and 10th May. I have also submitted an undertaking with regard to it in the Islamabad High Court. Violence at state symbols like the GHQ (army's General Headquarters), Supreme Court or parliament should be condemned by everyone and I do," she said.
"The second thing that I am to say is that through the 12-day process of arrest, release, abduction and then release, due to my health and the difficulties my daughter, Iman, had to go through...I have decided that I am quitting active politics and I also want to say this from today onwards, I will not be a part of the PTI or any political party."
The 72-year-old veteran, who was flanked by her daughter at the presser, said she would be focusing more on her health, children and her mother.
"My children and my mother are my priority and because of that my health is my priority too," she said. "There is nothing more important except for that."
Mazari's departure came as a shock to PTI supporters, though she is not the first one to quit the party in recent days. More than a dozen current and former PTI lawmakers, including Aamir Kiani, Sanjay Gangwani and Mahmood Baqi Maulvi, have quit the party since the crackdown began.
In his reaction, Khan described the desertions as "forced divorces."
"We had all heard about forced marriages in Pakistan but for PTI a new phenomenon has emerged, forced divorces," he wrote on Twitter.
"Also wondering where have all the human rights organizations in the country disappeared."
Several prominent PTI figures, including Asad Umar, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain, Maleeka Bokhari and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, remain behind the bars as authorities go on to arrest party leaders and supporters for violence, amid heightened tensions between Khan and Pakistan’s powerful military establishment, which has vowed to try the May 9 rioters under military laws.
Qureshi, another top aide and former foreign minister in Khan's cabinet, was rearrested on Tuesday after getting bail, the ex-premier said.
Khan, who has been calling for snap elections since his ouster from office last year, has accused the government of initiating the crackdown against his supporters to “crush” the PTI ahead of the upcoming general elections, a charge the government denies.
