ISLAMABAD: Prominent Pakistani-American fashion designer Khadija Shah, who was arrested in May following nationwide protests over former prime minister Imran Khan's brief detention, has not been released despite getting bail by a high court earlier this week, her lawyer and family said on Saturday.
Shah, the founder of the luxury fashion brand Elan, was granted bail in two cases of vandalism and arson by the Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday, her lawyer said, adding that police had told the court on Oct. 10 that she was not wanted in any other case.
Shah was arrested on May 25 after being on the run for almost two weeks following the May 9 violence, when angry Khan supporters attacked government and military properties in many parts of the country after his brief arrest in a land graft case.
Shah was accused in two cases of vandalism and arson at the Lahore Corps Commander House as well as the Askari Tower in Gulberg. The fashion designer denies any wrongdoing and says she protested peacefully.
"The circus continues: #KhadijahShah got bail from #LHC but she has not been released," Sameer Khosa, her lawyer, wrote on social media platform X.
"The LHC ordered that she not be harassed. Yet, they have sought from #ATC to interrogate her in another #FIR now."
He did not specify the details of the new case registered against Shah.
Her brother, Asif Nawaz Shah, took to Twitter to lament that Shah's daughter was without her mother for the past five months.
"The Pakistani authorities continue to display full-chested disregard and contempt for our constitution, for justice, for due process, for civil liberties," he wrote on X.
Shah's husband, Jehanzeb Amin, confirmed his wife had not been released and that an anti-terror court had ordered that she be investigated in another case.
"She remains incarcerated and her children are devastated," he said.
Shah is the daughter of Dr. Salman Shah, a member of the finance team of former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf. Her father had also served as an adviser in the Punjab government during Khan’s tenure as prime minister. She is the granddaughter of a former Pakistani army chief.
Many Khan supporters and aides have been rearrested in new cases in recent months moments after getting bail.
Khan, who is serving a three-year jail sentence in a separate graft case, says a slew of legal cases against him since he was ousted from office in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in 2022 are fabricated and politically motivated. The former prime minister also alleges that his associates are being forced out of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party under duress by the military in a maneuver to dismantle his party before elections scheduled early next year. The army denies this.
