By Staff Reporter
RAWALPINDI: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi said on Thursday he would stage an overnight sit-in with party lawmakers and supporters outside a police picket near Adiala jail after being denied permission to meet jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Afridi, who heads the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and is a senior member of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, arrived at the Factory Naka picket near the prison in Rawalpindi on Thursday afternoon in a fresh attempt to secure a meeting with the incarcerated party founder. The chief minister has been seeking access to Khan since taking office in October last year but has repeatedly been turned away.
Thursdays and Tuesdays are designated by court order as days for meetings with the former premier, who has been held at Adiala jail since his arrest in multiple cases. However, Afridi, along with Khan’s sisters and lawyers, have been barred from seeing him for several weeks, prompting frequent sit-ins and protests near the facility. Police have on multiple occasions used force to disperse demonstrators who have camped at the Factory Naka site.
Speaking to reporters at the picket on Thursday, Afridi stood alongside PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja and announced the overnight protest.”Most of [PTI] parliamentarians have also reached the spot and some others will be arriving in some time,” Afridi said. “This is about our leader’s life. We will not let this get normalised. We will spend the entire night here. We are waiting for a meeting between Imran Khan sahib and his family and personal physician.”
Afridi warned that if deliberate efforts were being made to exacerbate the situation without cause, “we cannot do anything about this. All responsibility then lies with the government. Those who are not allowing the meeting will be responsible.” He said allowing Khan’s sisters to meet him could avert any further deterioration.
The announcement followed PTI’s expressions of concern on Tuesday about Khan’s health. Federal Information Minister Attaullah Tarar confirmed earlier on Thursday that Khan had been taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) in Islamabad on Saturday night for a medical procedure related to an eye ailment. Speaking on a private television channel, Tarar said eye specialists had examined Khan at Adiala jail and recommended he be transferred to Pims for further evaluation and treatment.
Acting on the doctors’ advice, the former prime minister was moved to the hospital that night, underwent the procedure, and was returned to Adiala jail with appropriate medical instructions, the minister said. Tarar emphasised that Khan’s vital signs were stable during the process and that his overall health was satisfactory. “He is absolutely healthy,” Tarar said, adding that all prisoners receive access to medical facilities and specialist care as needed, in line with jail regulations. The confirmation came a day after local media reports, citing a hospital doctor, stated that Khan had been admitted to Pims under tight security on Saturday for the eye procedure and was discharged the following day.
Afridi, referring to Tarar’s statement, told reporters he had “serious reservations” about Khan’s health. For his part, Raja said the party had submitted a list of individuals authorized to meet Khan to the prison authorities, as directed by the Islamabad High Court. “All those who have been mentioned in the list are present here,” Raja said. He insisted they would not leave without seeing Khan, describing the meeting as the former premier’s “human right.” “The PTI founder was taken to Pims secretly on Saturday night. It was certainly a situation where the party founder could not receive treatment in prison.” “It was the prison administration’s responsibility to inform his family members so that they, along with his personal physician, were present.”
Ahead of Afridi’s arrival, Rawalpindi police implemented stringent security measures, placing personnel on high alert at the prison and surrounding areas. Pickets were set up near the jail’s gate, at the Shaigan Healthcare factory, and in the Dahgal and Gorakhpur neighborhoods, with female officers deployed along Adiala Road. Checkpoints were established at toll plazas on the M1 (Islamabad-Peshawar) and M2 (Islamabad-Lahore) motorways. Additional police deployments were made at key intersections including Committee Chowk, Liaquat Bagh, GPO Chowk, Chungi No. 22, Khawaja Corporation Chowk, Gulshanabad Chowk, Thalian Interchange and Chakri Interchange.
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