Pakistan's opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party demanded immediate and unrestricted access to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan on Wednesday, November 11, after he was taken overnight from prison to a government hospital in Islamabad for eye treatment and returned to his cell before dawn, Al Jazeera reported.
Source: Al Jazeera
Khan, 74, was transferred from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad. In a statement, the hospital said a medical examination was conducted on the advice of his ophthalmologist and that he received another injection in his right eye. He was discharged at about 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday with instructions for further care and follow-up, the hospital said.
"His vital parameters were found to be normal. He was clinically stable, and his general physical examination was normal," PIMS said in its statement, as reported by Al Jazeera.
Khan has been receiving a series of intravitreal injections in his right eye to treat central retinal vein occlusion, a condition diagnosed after he reported reduced vision. The overnight injection was the latest in that course of treatment.
Khan's health has been a running flashpoint between PTI and the authorities — earlier this month his party pressed for his transfer to a private hospital after a reported blood-pressure reading of 192. Read: Imran Khan blood pressure row and the Shifa transfer demand
PTI: family and doctors were not told
PTI said the overnight hospital visit and Khan's return to his prison cell raised "deeply troubling questions" about his health, the quality of his medical care and the transparency surrounding his condition. "His family, personal doctors and legal team must be given immediate and unrestricted access," the party said.
PTI information secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram told Al Jazeera that Khan's family and personal doctors had not been informed about the hospital visit, that the party learned about it from news reports, and that no family member, party representative or personal physician was present at the hospital.
PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan repeated the party's demand that Khan be moved to Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad, citing Supreme Court directions issued on August 18 that, he said, called for the transfer and for a medical board including Khan's personal physician and a family member. Writing on X, Gohar said the order "has remained unimplemented for nearly three months" and urged that Khan be shifted immediately for comprehensive examinations and tests, Pakistani media reported.
Source: Pakistani media reports
The hospital visit came a day after the Islamabad High Court directed, on Tuesday, that lawyers Latif Khosa and Salman Safdar be allowed to meet Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi in Adiala Jail, according to the same reports.
What happens next: PTI is pressing for the August Supreme Court directions to be implemented and for family and personal-doctor access, while the authorities point to the PIMS statement that Khan is clinically stable. Khan, a former cricket star who served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, has been behind bars since August 2023 on multiple corruption charges, which he denies and calls politically motivated.