By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister Ian Khan was taken from his prison cell to a government hospital in the early hours of Wednesday and given his sixth injection for a condition that has damaged the vision in his right eye, the hospital said.
The 74-year-old was moved from Adiala jail in Rawalpindi to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad overnight between 10 and 11 November. There, an ophthalmology team gave him an intravitreal anti-VEGF injection, a drug delivered into the eye to treat disorders of the retina.
PIMS said Khan was examined, including an eye assessment, before the procedure, and gave informed consent. Doctors found his vital signs normal and described him as clinically stable before, during and after the injection. He was discharged at about 2.30am after 40 to 50 minutes in the hospital and returned to Adiala.
It was his first visit to the hospital since the government of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was removed from office. President Asif Ali Zardari declared a state of emergency in the north-western province on 11 October and suspended its government. Ministers cited a deteriorating security situation and accused the provincial administration of failing to confront militancy. Khan’s spokesperson Zulfiqar Bukhari called it a “disguised coup”. Law minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the government would stay suspended for at least six months, but gave no date for lifting the emergency.
Khan’s previous reported visit to PIMS was in August, when the government did not follow a Supreme Court order. On 18 August the court had directed that he be moved to the private Shifa International Hospital for specialised treatment. He was taken to PIMS, examined and sent back to jail. The government said it had acted purely on the security situation. It has also filed a review petition against the order, calling the direction “discriminatory”.
PTI said the latest transfer was a “secretive midnight” affair and that the party had not been told. In a statement, it said the state “bears full responsibility” for Khan’s safety, and that access for his family, personal doctors and lawyers, along with transparent reporting on his condition, was “non-negotiable”. It repeated its demand that he be moved to Shifa.
The party’s information secretary, Sheikh Waqas Akram, said a day earlier that Khan’s blood pressure had spiked to 192. He pointed to an affidavit from Barrister Salman Safdar, who met Khan in jail, which he said recorded readings of 160, 170 and 192 and raised the risk of a heart attack or stroke. The figures could not be independently verified. The News newspaper reported on 6 November that Safdar had distanced himself from circulating accounts of the reading, and that sources familiar with his meeting with Khan said the former premier had mentioned a reading of around 190 on one occasion but was otherwise generally fit. Safdar later told judges that Khan reported improved eyesight but that his blood pressure remained uncontrolled.
The party’s statement compared Khan’s position with that of Mohamed Morsi, the former Egyptian president who died in custody, and warned that further delay or obstruction would carry serious consequences. It also raised alarm about the eyesight of Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, who is held in the same jail.
The government has not responded to the latest allegations. It has consistently said Khan receives appropriate medical care in custody. In January, when his first procedure became public, information minister Attaullah Tarar said eye specialists had advised the move to PIMS and that the procedure lasted about 20 minutes. He dismissed social media reports that Khan’s condition was serious.
The hospital visit came a day after Khan’s sister, Dr Uzma Khan, asked the Supreme Court for an early hearing of the case over his transfer to Shifa. The court deferred proceedings on 16 September after the Federal Constitutional Court called for the records of the transfer cases, raising a question over which court had jurisdiction. A contempt petition filed by PTI, alleging that the August order was disobeyed, is also pending.
The treatment dates to January, when Khan reported reduced vision and PIMS diagnosed central retinal vein occlusion in his right eye, a blockage that affects blood flow through the retina. He had his first injection on 24 January. In February, a report prepared by Safdar at the Supreme Court’s direction said Khan had told officials his right eye was working at only 15 per cent. The court then ordered that he be given access to his personal physicians in jail and allowed to speak by telephone to his sons, Kasim and Sulaiman.
A medical board later reported that vision in his right eye had improved from 6/36 to 6/9, with 6/6 in the left eye using glasses, and did not recommend a move to hospital. Further injections followed on 23 March, 28 April and 15 June, with doctors reporting improvement after a scan before the fourth. The latest came almost five months after the fifth.
Ms Bibi was examined in jail in March after complaining of pain, blurred vision, dark spots and flashes of light in her right eye, and was diagnosed with posterior vitreous detachment. She underwent eye surgery on 16 April. Safdar told the Islamabad High Court on Saturday that her eyes were in an “extremely vulnerable condition”, and she has asked the court for an immediate examination by an eye specialist.
Safdar’s meeting with Khan and Bibi on 2 November was the first time in several months that the government had allowed him access to them, and he said the 40 minutes allowed was not enough. The overnight hospital visit also came ahead of a court-directed meeting between Khan and his lawyers.
Khan led Pakistan to its only 50-over cricket World Cup title in 1992 and served as prime minister from 2018 until he was removed in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022. He has been in prison since August 2023 after a series of convictions and legal proceedings that he says are politically motivated. He is serving a sentence in the £190m corruption case and faces pending trials under the Anti-Terrorism Act over the protests of 9 May 2023. On 20 December 2025, he and Bibi were sentenced to 17 years in the Toshakhana-II case, which concerned a Bulgari jewellery set given by the Saudi crown prince during an official visit that the couple were accused of unlawfully keeping. PTI rejects the charges and describes his detention as political victimisation.
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