By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: In a surprise hospital visit that underscored the deepening fractures within Pakistan’s opposition ranks, three former leaders of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party sought to enlist the support of the jailed vice chairman, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, for a new campaign aimed at securing Khan’s release.
Qureshi rebuffed the overture, according to his lawyer, highlighting the tensions between the party’s old guard and its current leadership amid ongoing political turmoil. The encounter unfolded on Thursday at a hospital in the provincial capital, where Qureshi, a senior PTI figure and former foreign minister, had been admitted for medical tests ahead of surgery for gallbladder stones.
The visitors, Fawad Chaudhry, a former information minister; Imran Ismail, a former governor of Sindh Province; and Mahmood Moulvi, a former lawmaker, gained access to Mr. Qureshi’s room while he was alone, ostensibly to persuade him to join their nascent “Release Imran Khan” initiative.”
Shah Mahmood Qureshi was surprised to see them and immediately asked the police on duty to call his lawyer, who had left just a minute ago, and tell him some ‘guests’ had arrived,” said Rana Mudassar Umer, Qureshi’s lawyer. By the time Umer returned, the trio had departed after a brief stay of little more than 10 minutes, with no substantive political discussion taking place.
The unannounced meeting followed reports that one of the leaders had been denied permission for an earlier visit. It also came amid efforts by the group to portray broader party buy-in, including suggestions that Asad Umar, another prominent former PTI leader and ex-finance minister, was aligned with their cause. Umar swiftly disavowed any involvement.” I am not part of this campaign…a group of politicians is trying to highlight,” Umar told the newspaper Dawn.
In a post on X, he elaborated: “Though any effort for the release of Imran Khan and other jailed leaders is good, but I am not part of the newly launched ‘Release Imran Khan’ campaign.” He added that he had learned of his supposed inclusion only through newspaper reports and had advised the group against the hospital visit, warning it would sow discord within the party and distress Qureshi’s family.
The initiative, as articulated by Chaudhry in a video message and subsequent statements, seeks to de-escalate Pakistan’s heated political climate and foster dialogue for the release of Khan, his wife Bushra Bibi, and other detained PTI members. Khan, the former prime minister ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022, remains imprisoned on multiple charges, including corruption and incitement related to violent protests by his supporters on May 9, 2023.
“We were trying to bring the political temperature down in the country and make the release of Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi possible, besides getting the right of bail for political prisoners acknowledged in the country,” Chaudhry said in the video. He emphasised creating conditions for negotiation: “The political temperature can come down in the country only if the PTI takes one step back and the government takes a step forward.”
Chaudhry claimed to have met with other PTI figures, including Ejaz Chaudhry, who he said shared the view that tensions must ease. He announced plans for his group to engage with senior ministers from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, a key opposition cleric.
PTI’s current leadership rejected the former leaders’ efforts outright. Sheikh Waqas Akram, the party’s information secretary, downplayed their relevance in an interview on a local television channel. “This is not a new thing that [news] comes about, such people who left the party. In the last year, there have been many attempts to sell this narrative from such characters, and it has not gotten any support,” Akram said.
He suggested the group had turned to Kot Lakhpat Jail after failing to gain traction at Adiala Jail, where Khan is held. “There is only one thinking in the PTI: whatever Imran Khan says, will happen. The rest is irrelevant. Who says what doesn’t matter doesn’t hold any weight. End of the story.”
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