ISLAMABAD — Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, the party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, says his blood pressure rose to an alarming 192 and has demanded his immediate transfer to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad for treatment by his personal doctors, according to party statements reported this week. Other accounts of the same jail meeting describe him as appearing generally fit, and Zark News has not independently verified the reading.
PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja said Khan’s blood pressure had escalated to 192, raising concerns about his health, according to Pakistani reporting. The party says the reported reading followed a meeting on November 2 at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi between Khan and his lawyer, Salman Safdar — the first such lawyer meeting since April, according to PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan.
Conflicting accounts
Safdar himself said he was not the source of the alarming health reports and described his role as limited to legal duties, according to summaries of his remarks. Multiple unnamed people familiar with the jail meeting said Khan mentioned a reading near 190 but looked generally fit, which has produced a disputed account of how serious the episode was. Readers should treat the figure of 192 as a claim by the party and Khan’s family, not as a confirmed medical finding.
The family says a Supreme Court order from August requiring treatment at Shifa International Hospital has not been carried out, and that an Islamabad High Court permission for twice-weekly visits has not eased broad limits on access to Khan. The government has not, in the reporting available to Zark News, published its own medical account of the reported episode.
Court steps continue
Separately, the Islamabad High Court was due on Thursday, November 5, to hear a petition by members of the National Dialogue Committee seeking permission to meet Khan at Adiala jail, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan. The petitioners, who include former minister Fawad Chaudhry, said they were deeply concerned about the health and well-being of Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, and asked the court to direct the jail superintendent to arrange a meeting.
In Lahore, the Lahore High Court has sought reports from the Punjab Home Department on petitions challenging the extended detention of Khan’s sisters and seeking medical treatment for one of them, Noreen Niazi, according to Pakistani reporting. The sisters were detained in September under the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance ahead of a planned PTI march to Islamabad demanding Khan’s release, and their detention was later extended.
What happens next
Khan has been in jail for more than three years and remains Pakistan’s most popular opposition figure, according to polling and the scale of support his party draws. The dispute over his medical care now sits with the courts and the jail authorities. Zark News will update this story if the government or the hospital publishes a verified medical statement.
Read the APP report on the court hearing: IHC fixes November 5 hearing on plea seeking jail meeting with PTI founder.
