PTI leaders on Friday once again expressed serious concern over the health of party founder and jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan and demanded his immediate treatment at Islamabad’s Shifa International Hospital. Addressing the media, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Sohail Afridi said the party made all possible constitutional and legal efforts to ensure that Imran receives treatment in the presence of his family and doctors, but his requests were not accepted.
"Imran Khan is not an ordinary individual; He is a former Prime Minister of Pakistan," Afridi said. The former prime minister has been detained in Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail since September 2023. He criticized the government for lacking a clear economic policy and accused it of preventing Imran from receiving medical treatment and restricting his meetings with family and doctors. PTI leader Junaid Akbar said the current regional situation is tense and warned that growing hostility between the public and state institutions could be dangerous.
"If Imran Khan’s health condition is not serious, why are his sisters not allowed to meet him?" he questioned. Former federal law minister Babar Awan alleged that Imran Khan’s illness had been concealed for almost two and a half months, which he described as a criminal act. He claimed that the delay in medical treatment caused serious damage to the former prime minister’s eyesight.
"In the past, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif sought treatment abroad, but we only demand that Imran Khan be shifted to Shifa Hospital in Islamabad." said. PTI leader Shahid Khattak said the party has little confidence in the current medical arrangements and demanded that Imran Khan be treated at Shifa Hospital with access to his family and personal doctors. Former provincial minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra also warned that the regional situation has become serious, referring to tensions involving Iran and Israel. He stressed that providing proper medical treatment to Imran Khan in the presence of his family and doctors was his basic right. Afridi concluded by saying that the PTI’s demands are constitutional and legal, adding that the party seeks justice in the courts and that peaceful protest remains its constitutional right. On Wednesday, a meeting of the joint opposition parliamentary party passed a unanimous resolution demanding the immediate release of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan. The resolution expressed serious concern about Imran Khan’s health condition and noted that he had reportedly been transferred twice for treatment to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences due to lack of adequate medical facilities in prison. He also noted the absence of a retina specialist at the hospital and stated that despite the deterioration of vision in his right eye, access to his personal and family doctors remained restricted. In view of his deteriorating health and need for immediate medical attention, he demanded his immediate release under rules 143, 145, 146, 197 and 795 of the Pakistan Prison Rules, read with section 401 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, citing precedents where similar relief had been granted to a convicted former prime minister.
