By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Capital police on Tuesday turned back Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and a delegation that included Imran Khan’s sisters as they tried to reach Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, where the former prime minister remains incarcerated despite a court order permitting regular family visits.
The confrontation underscored the deepening political friction surrounding Khan, who has been held at the high-security prison since Aug. 5, 2023. He is serving a 14-year sentence after being convicted of concealing details of gifts he received while in office — a case commonly known as the Toshakhana reference — and faces additional proceedings in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust corruption case.
The Islamabad High Court has authorized the former premier to receive family members, lawyers and associates twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yet prison authorities have repeatedly denied access, leaving Khan largely isolated from visitors for months, according to his political allies and family.
Afridi, accompanied by Khan’s sisters and a contingent of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders and workers, left for the jail earlier on Tuesday. Police intercepted the group at Chungi No. 26 on the outskirts of Islamabad, preventing them from proceeding despite what witnesses described as heated arguments. A separate group of PTI figures — including senior lawyer Salman Akram Raja, party chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and the daughters of Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi — reached the jail gates but were also refused entry. Visiting hours ended at 4 p.m.
The episode came days after a medical team arrived at Adiala to examine Khan, whose health has become a flashpoint of public concern. In January, Khan underwent a medical procedure at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad, an operation that was not immediately disclosed to his family. He has since received follow-up care at the same facility.
The attempted visit was prompted by a suggestion from Khan’s sister Aleema Khan several weeks ago that Afridi, as the elected chief executive of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, go to the jail. Aleema herself has made repeated attempts to see her brother but has been turned away each time. Afridi had begun joining those efforts following her appeal.
The police action created severe traffic snarls along major routes into Rawalpindi. Commuters heading to the airport were among the hardest hit, with some drivers resorting to traveling on the wrong side of the road to reach their destinations.
Speaking to reporters after being stopped, Afridi denounced the blockade as discriminatory treatment of his province. “Stopping the chief executive and the entire cabinet of a province on their way to a peaceful meeting with him amounted to discrimination against the province,” he said. He recalled previous visits by Khan’s sisters during which police had used water cannons, yet emphasized that PTI supporters had responded with restraint. “What message are they trying to send? Do they want to separate Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from Pakistan?” Afridi asked. “Do they see the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa so weak that they can enact such cruelty? Sometimes they stop the flow of wheat, sometimes they stop our gas, sometimes they stop electricity, and sometimes they stop the chief executive and his whole cabinet in the road. Will we stand by and watch? Is this a joke?”
He contrasted the current restrictions with the treatment extended to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif during Khan’s own tenure in office, when Sharif was allowed to leave prison for medical care. Khan, Afridi noted, is now suffering from a “serious eye issue” but has not been granted comparable access to treatment of his choice.
The chief minister insisted the party’s demands were modest and lawful. “This is a fundamental human right that Imran Khan undergo treatment with his personal physicians, in the presence of his family members, at a hospital of his choice,” he said. “We have no illegal or unconstitutional demands.”
Later on X, Afridi wrote that the government’s actions constituted “not only an insult to the chief executive but also to the 46 million people of KP.” He described Khan’s health as “a matter of serious national concern” and placed responsibility for any harm squarely on the federal government, Punjab police, Adiala Jail administration and “their handlers.” “History will not forgive those who remain silent or complicit,” he added. “Justice must prevail and it will prevail.”
Aleema Khan posted her own statement on X, saying the family had “exhausted every democratic and legal avenue” and would now exercise its “constitutional right to peaceful assembly” to protest what she called “this illegitimate, stolen-mandate government and its continued political victimisation of Pakistan’s most popular leader.” She noted that the gathering point for supporters was kept a kilometre from the jail. “The blocking of an elected chief minister and his cabinet is not just an attack on one political party; it is an attack on democracy itself, an insult to the mandate of millions of Pakistanis,” she wrote.
The standoff fits into a months-long pattern of mutual recriminations. PTI leaders accuse the government of withholding information about Khan’s condition, denying him access to personal physicians and refusing to transfer him to a civilian hospital such as Shifa International. Government officials have rejected those claims, insisting proper medical care is being provided. On April 17, Bushra Bibi, who remains incarcerated alongside her husband at Adiala, underwent eye surgery at a Rawalpindi hospital, according to jail authorities.
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