Sulaiman Khan, the son of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, has said in an urgent warning that his father’s life is in grave danger because of his long imprisonment and mistreatment. The family says no one has been allowed any contact with Imran Khan since August, and that he is not being allowed medical treatment. Pakistan’s government says he is a prisoner serving a sentence on a court’s order.
Imran Khan’s son said no one had had any news of his father since August. At that time the former prime minister had alleged that he was being tortured.
Sulaiman Khan, born to Imran Khan’s former wife, the British heiress Jemima Goldsmith, said his father’s life was in danger. He holds Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, responsible for the long imprisonment.
Khan, 74, is serving his sentence in Rawalpindi’s notorious Adiala jail after being convicted of corruption and taking bribes. His family has repeatedly raised concern about his treatment in prison and his worrying health.
More than 100 cases have been filed against Imran Khan. The former prime minister and former captain of Pakistan’s national cricket team is being held in solitary confinement. He denies all the charges against him and says they are politically motivated.
Sulaiman Khan said the family and his father’s lawyers had received no message from him for several months.
He said his father had warned earlier that he could meet the same fate as Egypt’s former president Mohamed Morsi, who died in court during his trial in 2019.
Sulaiman Khan also wrote: “No one has seen my father or heard from him since August. In August he said clearly that he was being tortured. Just as the Egyptian government killed Morsi, this regime is trying to kill him.”
Sulaiman alleged that army chief Field Marshal Munir was ignoring an order the Supreme Court gave in August. The court had ordered that Imran Khan be examined and treated at the private Shifa hospital, and that his family and lawyers be allowed to visit him regularly.
Sulaiman added that it was clear they were trying to kill his father because he was the most popular political figure in the country and they feared him. “If the worst happens, no one should be mistaken about who is responsible,” he said.
Pakistan’s government has denied all allegations of torture and solitary confinement.
In a written reply to the AP news agency in August, the information ministry said Imran Khan was not being held on any government order; rather, he was a “convicted” prisoner serving a sentence handed down by a court after due legal process.
The allegations came amid reports that Sulaiman Khan and his brother Kasim Khan had been advised not to come to Pakistan to campaign for their father’s release after other family members were arrested.
Ahead of planned protests, Imran Khan’s three sisters, Aleema Khan, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi, were detained in September under the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance.
According to officials of Pakistan’s Punjab government, their detention was extended by another 30 days on Monday.
Despite being in prison, Imran Khan has become hugely popular in Pakistan. Thousands of supporters joined a rally earlier this month demanding his release.
The protesters had organised a “long march” towards Islamabad, demanding Imran Khan’s release, access to him in prison and treatment by doctors of his choice.
On 11 October, President Asif Ali Zardari declared a state of emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and suspended the provincial government run by Imran Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).
The government cited the activity of armed militants in the province, which borders Afghanistan, as the reason for the emergency. The PTI, however, called the move “a coup in the guise of an emergency” and accused the authorities of trying to weaken the movement for Imran Khan’s release.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report