“They want to silence him as secretly as possible"
The sons of former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan have raised serious concerns about their father’s health and conditions in prison.
Sulaiman and Kasim Khan criticised Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi following reports involving the Pakistan team and a televised interview.
The controversy emerged during the second Test between Pakistan and England at Lord’s.
Sky Sports aired an interview with Sulaiman and Kasim, who discussed their father’s health and prison conditions.
Reports later claimed the PCB threatened not to send Pakistan’s players onto the field after lunch.
The reported threat allegedly depended on the interview being removed from the broadcast.
Kasim subsequently made serious allegations about his father’s treatment while discussing his solitary confinement.
He said: “They’re clearly hoping to kill him in there.
“They want to silence him as secretly as possible and just slowly make him fade into nothing.
“That’s a very difficult thing to do with the most popular person in Pakistan right now.”
Kasim also accused authorities of imposing increasingly severe restrictions on his father, Imran Khan:
“Their strategy, whenever we speak, is to let everything fizzle out and then impose more brutal restrictions that make it even harder for him to survive.”
The reported PCB response also drew criticism from the brothers, with Kasim adding:
“They made absolute fools of themselves.”
Sulaiman said he expected some response but was surprised by the reported threat involving Pakistan’s Test team.
He said: “I was expecting some sort of response. But I didn’t think they would be so tactless as to threaten not to take to the field.”
He also questioned why the PCB would become involved in an interview concerning Khan’s health.
Pakistani authorities have repeatedly denied allegations of mistreatment.
They have maintained that Khan is receiving appropriate medical care while in prison.
Sulaiman questioned those assurances and said the family had not received sufficient information about his father’s condition.
“The worrying theory we’re hearing is that they’re drip-feeding these reports of his ailing health.
“They’re pretending that they’re trying to help him, just to lay the ground for something worse to happen.
“Then they can wash their hands and say: ‘He’s just an old man who died, and we had nothing to do with it’.”
Sulaiman also questioned the lack of transparency surrounding Khan’s health:
“They haven’t given us proof of any of this.
“It’s all just hearsay from government sources – there’s no transparency, they don’t want to give anyone access.”
He questioned how the family could trust information without greater transparency.
“The last verifiable piece of information we had was from him, six months ago.”
He said Khan had spoken at that time about concerns involving his eye.
The brothers’ comments have intensified concerns surrounding Khan’s imprisonment and his reported health problems.
However, the allegations remain disputed by Pakistani authorities.
Officials continue to deny claims that Khan is being deliberately mistreated or denied appropriate medical care.
