Pak police left ex-PM Imran Khan's residence in Lahore after having 'water and biscuits', says his chief security officer

Authorities in Pakistan's Punjab province on Friday met ousted prime minister Imran Khan at his highly-fortified residence here to arrest “terrorists” reportedly hiding there and handed over a list of 2,200 suspects involved in the recent protests that targeted military installations and government buildings.

Khan, 70, was arrested by the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers at the Islamabad High Court premises on May 9, which triggered unrest across the country.

For the first time in Pakistan's history, protesters stormed the army headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi and also torched a corps commander's house in Lahore.

A delegation comprising Lahore Commissioner Muhammad Ali Randhawa, Lahore Deputy Commissioner Rafia Haider and DIG Operations Sadiq Dogar visited Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party at his Zaman Park residence and held a 90-minute meeting with him.

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They handed the names of people involved in the attack on the Lahore Corps Commander House and Askari Tower and evidence was handed over to him.

Punjab information minister Amir Mir said the former premier was handed a list of 2,200 “wanted people” involved in the attacks on military installations during the May 9 violence, claiming that these people were traced via geofencing.

“Among these people are also people from his family who have been named in the list,” he told Geo News.

Some of these people Mir said have been named in the list include Khan's nephew Hassan Niazi and cousin Zubair Niazi.

Hassan Niazi allegedly hoisted the uniform of the corps commander.

Mir claimed that people “in disguise” were caught fleeing Zaman Park on Thursday night.

“But no agreement was reached regarding a search operation," he said.

“We did not want to take an extreme step. Therefore, headed by the Lahore commissioner, a three-member delegation visited Khan’s residence and held a 1.5-hour meeting with him," he said.

The minister hinted that over 800 PTI leaders and workers would be tried under the Army Act.

Punjab Interim Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi said he has ordered the removal of police deployment outside Khan's residence, but on condition that “encroachments inside Zaman Park” are removed.

He passed these instructions after holding a meeting with the government team that held negotiations with Khan, regarding the search operation, at his residence on Friday.

“As soon as encroachments inside Zaman Park are removed, we will call back the police deployed outside,” he said in a statement.

“People who visited Khan’s Zaman Park residence with arrest warrants were fully satisfied," the PTI tweeted.

“We believe in the rule of law, therefore, they were given full cooperation,” the party said in another tweet.

Later, addressing a press conference, Khan demanded evidence regarding his party’s involvement in the May 9 violence, saying that if anyone from the PTI was involved, “I will help [the police] catch them”.

“They (authorities) gave me eight names, who they said were wanted.They asked me to make an appeal to hand over these individuals to them," Khan said.

Earlier, Khan’s chief security officer Iftikhar Ghuman said the Punjab police have returned from Zaman Park “empty-handed”, according to the Dawn newspaper.

Talking to journalists outside Khan's residence, Ghuman said: “I think they have understood that there is nothing here. The only thing they got here was water and biscuits."

“We opened the doors of the house for them in front of you. Now you ask them what they got," he added.

On Wednesday, the Punjab government claimed that "30 to 40 terrorists were hiding inside Khan's residence," and gave an ultimatum of 24 hours to his party to hand over the miscreants.

However, no action was taken after the deadline expired on Thursday.

On Friday, an anti-terrorism court here approved pre-arrest bail till June 2 to Khan in three terrorism cases filed against Pakistan's former prime minister in the wake of violence that erupted after his arrest on May 9.

Police put the death toll in violent clashes to 10, while Khan's party claims 40 of its workers lost their lives in the firing by security personnel.

On Monday, the top military brass vowed to bring the arsonists, who attacked the civil and military installations, to justice through trial under relevant laws of the country, including the Pakistan Army Act and Official Secrets Act.

Law enforcement agencies have arrested over 7,000 PTI workers across Pakistan, 4,000 of them from Punjab.

Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, was ousted from power in April last year after losing a no-confidence vote in his leadership, which he alleged was part of a US-led conspiracy targeting him because of his independent foreign policy decisions on Russia, China and Afghanistan.