PTI leader Ali Zaidi being shifted to Jacobabad jail

KARACHI: Hours after Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Sindh President Ali Zaidi rebutted reports of leaving his party, the Sindh government on Wednesday night decided to shift him to Jacobabad jail after ending his house arrest.

According to a notification issued by the provincial home department: “This department’s corrigendum of even number dated 15/5/2023 regarding detention of Ali Zaidi (MNA) s/o Syed Sajjad Haider Zaidi at sub-jail declared vide Home Department notification …is herby withdrawn/cancelled.”       

The notification read that since the May 15 corrigendum has been recalled, the May 12 order shall continue and the detained PTI leader will be shifted to the District Prison Jacobabad.

Taking to Twitter, the detained PTI leader wrote: “My house arrest request was accommodated because of a health condition, Asthma & severe strain on my lower back.”

“Now I am being arrested again from Ziauddin hospital & taken to Jacobababd jail,” he added.

Reacting to the unexpected decision by the provincial government, the PTI leader asked if he was being punished for saying positive things about the armed forces or condemning the violence of May 9.

Zaidi's arrest is part of the ongoing crackdown on the PTI leaders and workers over their alleged involvement in ransacking and torching military and public properties after party chief Imran Khan's arrest in the Al-Qadir Trust case on May 9.

The deadly protests took the lives of at least 10 people and injured several others, with the authorities not only arresting the party leaders but thousands of PTI workers as well.

The military and the government have decided that the vandals involved in the attacks on defence installations would be tried under the Pakistan Army Act and Official Secrets Act.

Before Zaidi, PTI leaders Maleeka Bokhari, Shireen Mazari, and Ali Muhammad Khan — who were released earlier today — were rearrested.