Key Takeaways
- Hammad Azhar’s mother filed a habeas corpus petition in the Lahore High Court.
- The petition seeks Azhar’s recovery from alleged police custody.
- Azhar was reportedly arrested in connection with May 9, 2023, riots.
LAHORE: The mother of Hammad Azhar has filed a habeas corpus petition in the Lahore High Court (LHC) to seek the release of her son from alleged police custody. The petition was filed on Monday by Ishrat Azhar, through Barrister Abuzar Salman Niazi, naming several police officials as respondents.
According to reports, Azhar was arrested two days prior to the filing of the petition, but his family had no information about his whereabouts. The petition expressed concerns about his safety and maintained that no person could be kept in illegal detention.
The petition requested the LHC to direct the respondents to produce Azhar before the court or any competent court and disclose the complete and lawful basis of his arrest and detention. It also sought immediate access for Azhar to his legal counsel and reasonable communication with his family members in accordance with the law.
Azhar, the son of late former Punjab governor Mian Muhammad Azhar, was wanted by Lahore police in connection with an attack on the Govt Officers’ Residences (GOR-I) gate on May 9, 2023. He has been declared a proclaimed offender by multiple anti-terrorism courts for not joining the proceedings against him in cases related to the May 9 riots.
Reports of Azhar’s arrest circulated widely on social media over the weekend, with different accounts emerging about where and when he was taken into custody. According to some reports, the PTI leader was handed over to Lahore police. However, Lahore Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Investigations Muhammad Naveed said he had no confirmation about Azhar’s arrest or handover to Lahore police.
In a statement on Sunday, the PTI termed the former finance minister’s arrest as 'the worst example of political vengeance and fascism.' The party alleged that Azhar was being continuously targeted with retaliatory actions on political grounds, and that the government was recklessly using state power to suppress political opponents and silence the voice of PTI.
Azhar had reappeared in public on May 22, 2024, a year after he had gone into hiding when the state launched a crackdown against the party leadership following the violent incidents of May 9. At the time, the PTI leader had evaded arrest when the Counter-Terrorism Department raided the party’s secretariat in Islamabad.
In April 2025, Azhar had stepped down as the president of the party’s Punjab chapter for the third time, after his two previous resignations were rejected.
