ISLAMABAD — Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has renewed efforts to secure relief for its jailed founder Imran Khan and his family following the imposition of emergency and governor’s rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to The News International, citing informed sources.
PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan has approached government authorities with requests for the release of Khan’s three sisters, whose 30-day detention period has elapsed, and for the restoration of family meetings with Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, according to the sources cited by The News. The party is seeking the resumption of Bushra Bibi’s meetings with family members, including a meeting on Tuesday, as part of efforts to normalise access following the end of the confrontation surrounding the planned protest march, the sources said. When contacted for comment, Gohar declined to discuss the matter, saying he could not speak to the media about it, according to The News. These are source-based accounts of private approaches; the government has not publicly confirmed the requests in the reporting cited here.
The shift follows the loss of PTI’s last provincial government. On October 11, President Asif Ali Zardari declared a state of emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the northwestern province bordering Afghanistan that was the only province still governed by Khan’s party, suspending the local government and accusing it of failing to tackle militancy, according to Reuters. The federal government’s office said the move followed the provincial government’s “deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism.” PTI spokesperson Zulfikar Bukhari described the move as “more of a coup disguised as emergency,” according to Al Jazeera’s reporting, while the party challenged the emergency in the Peshawar High Court, which sought a reply from the attorney general and adjourned the hearing to November 10.
Party sources acknowledged to The News that PTI’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa leadership’s confrontational approach had cost the party an important opportunity to ease restrictions on the former prime minister and his family, and that the party had missed a significant opportunity during recent contacts with the government to secure relief for Khan, his sisters and Bushra Bibi. They attributed the setback in part to the aggressive posture adopted by the province’s PTI leadership under then chief minister Sohail Afridi, according to The News. Khan has been in jail for more than three years but still commands widespread popularity across the country, according to reporting on the crisis.
The confrontation had been building for weeks. PTI had been preparing a march on Islamabad to demand Khan’s release; the march was originally scheduled for September 27 and postponed to October 4 to allow talks, while the government said it would not allow the march to enter the capital and placed barriers on main access routes, according to Al Jazeera. Ahead of the emergency, Khan’s three sisters and hundreds of supporters, including party leaders, were arrested, according to Reuters.
Why it matters: the move from confrontation to quiet negotiation marks a tactical turn for PTI after losing its provincial government, its planned march and access to its jailed leader in the same month. Whether the authorities grant the family-access requests will be an early test of whether the post-emergency standoff can cool.
What happens next: the Peshawar High Court hearing on the emergency itself is adjourned to November 10, and PTI’s requests on the sisters’ release and Bushra Bibi’s family meetings await a response from the authorities. This is a developing story. Read the original report in The News here.
