Pakistan’s top court orders jailed Imran Khan be shifted to hospital amid health concerns

Posted on by Vividh Bharathi

Islamabad, Aug 18 (IANS) Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered authorities to transfer jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan to Islamabad’s Shifa International Hospital for a comprehensive medical examination within the next few days, local media reported.

A three-member Supreme Court bench led by Justice Shahid Waheed passed the order while hearing several petitions seeking Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan’s hospitalisation and meeting with his family.

“Mindful of the fundamental right, we are issuing this order to ensure the health and safety of the prisoner,” leading Pakistani daily Dawn quoted Waheed as saying.

The court said the order was being issued in view of Imran Khan’s health and the constitutional guarantee of the right to life and access to medical facilities. It also directed authorities to ensure weekly meetings between Imran Khan and his family members and ordered the establishment of a medical board, with his personal physician and his sister Uzma Khan, to be associated with it.

The ruling came a day after the Superintendent of Adiala jail, where Imran Khan has been incarcerated since August 2023, submitted a report to the Supreme Court on the former PM’s health.

Citing an annexure to the findings, Dawn reported that Akhtar Ali Bandeshah, a doctor at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), examined Imran Khan on August 1 and recorded complaints of uncontrolled and fluctuating blood pressure, palpitations, headache, and restlessness.

Imran Khan reportedly linked his symptoms and stress partly to limited meetings with his wife, family, and social contacts, as well as the lack of access to newspapers and television, Dawn reported.

The doctor advised steps to ease Imran Khan’s mental stress, including allowing him to meet his wife more frequently and providing access to reading material. He also recommended a CT coronary angiography and an increase in his blood pressure medication, warning that the 74-year-old PTI leader was at risk of developing complications.

Imran Khan had approached the Supreme Court in May, seeking his transfer to Shifa International Hospital and access to his personal physicians, family members, and legal counsel, as well as the sharing of his medical records with his family.

Last month, UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, Alice Jill Edwards, expressed concerns over reports of Imran Khan’s detention conditions and his not getting access to proper medical care.

She also urged Pakistan to restore humane conditions and allow the former PM to access medical examination and treatment of his own choice.

“Fmr PM Imran Khan has now been held in near-total solitary for 33 months in a small, windowless cell under 24/7 CCTV. Often more than 2 weeks continuously, without exercise or meaningful human contact. This far exceeds the MANDELA rules,” Edwards wrote in a post on LinkedIn.

“I am also concerned about reports that he is being denied proper medical care and is suffering from serious medical issues that have not been treated appropriately, compounding a spinal injury from a 2013 accident and bullet wounds sustained in a November 2022 assassination attempt. I call on Pakistan to restore humane conditions and allow him his choice of medical examination and appropriate treatment,” she added.

–IANS

scor/sd/

Related Posts

The Telangana case behind the trouble for Meenakshi Natarajan’s RS nomination

Hyderabad, June 10 (IANS) A huge row erupted over Congress leader Meenakshi Natarajan’s nomination for Rajya Sabha in Madhya Pradesh. The focus is on the case allegedly pending in a court in Hyderabad, which was not mentioned in her affidavit.

The legal notice sent to the AICC in-charge for Telangana at the state Congress office, Gandhi Bhavan, last year shows that she was one of the respondents in a private complaint filed by a former Congress leader and a former corporator of Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

The complaint was filed under section 223 of BNSS in the Court of the 4th Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate at Hyderabad in 2025. Meenakshi Natarajan, listed as the fourth respondent, was directed to appear in the court on September 17, 2025, and file a counter, if any.

Srilatha, who was a corporator elected on the TDP ticket from 2002 to 2007, had filed the petition in court against a Congress leader, Shiva Kumar Reddy, alleging that she faces a threat to her life from him and his supporters.

The complainant named seven Congress leaders, including Meenakshi Natrajan, as respondents on the ground that they were apprised of the ‘harassment’ and ‘threats’ but had failed to act against the said person.

Following the court’s direction on the complaint, an FIR was registered on May 28, 2025.

Sources in Congress say that Natarajan was not named in the first police complaint filed by Srilatha in 2022. The case was then disposed of due to a lack of evidence. Her later private complaints in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, too, were disposed of.

The returning officer in Madhya Pradesh, who rejected Natarajan’s nomination, reportedly acted on a complaint by senior BJP leader and Minister in the Mohan Yadav government, Kailash Vijayvargiya. The complaint contended that a case involving Natarajan is pending before a Telangana court and was not disclosed in her nomination affidavit.

Kailash Vijayvargiya’s remark suggesting that they received the ‘paper’ from a Congress leader in Telangana sparked a row. Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders were quick to point fingers at Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, who also holds the home portfolio.

“Who informed Madhya Pradesh BJP? Is there a role of Home Minister of Telangana?” asked BRS leader Krishank Manne.

The BRS leader claims that Natarajan opposed the Musi River beautification project, the demolitions of houses in Khammam, and deforestation at the University of Hyderabad.

–IANS

ms/skp

US Congressman Ro Khanna slams Trump on Taiwan policy

Washington, Feb 18 (IANS) A senior Democratic lawmaker has sharply criticised President Donald Trump over remarks suggesting he discussed future US arms sales to Taiwan with Chinese President Xi Jinping, calling the move a break from long-standing American policy.

Indian American Congressman Ro Khanna, Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, said Tuesday that Trump’s comments were “alarming.”

“Trump’s admission that he is discussing future US arms sales to Taiwan with Xi is alarming and a blatant violation of US policy and the Six Assurances,” Khanna said in a statement.

His remarks followed President Donald Trump’s comments about consulting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping regarding arms sales to Taiwan — an issue that sits at the heart of US-China strategic tensions.

Khanna argued that such consultations would run counter to established US commitments toward Taiwan, particularly the so-called Six Assurances, a set of policy principles dating back to the Reagan administration.

“His statement shows just how Trump treats Taiwan as a ‘bargaining chip’ in trade negotiations with China. It shows he is more eager to make bad deals with America’s strategic competitors than strengthen ties with long-standing friends like Taiwan. It is not only an affront to the security of Taiwan’s 23 million people, but a stain on America’s global credibility,” Khanna said.

He urged the White House to provide clarity and reaffirm continuity in policy.

“I urge the President to reaffirm our commitment to the Six Assurances and clarify that our policy on Taiwan has not changed. Taiwan must be off the table.”

The Six Assurances are six policy principles the US has committed to during every administration since President Reagan. Among them, the second Assurance states that the US did not agree to consult Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan.

Unlike the Taiwan Relations Act, the Six Assurances are not yet codified into law. Congress is currently advancing legislation to codify these stabilising principles through the Six Assurances to Taiwan Act.

The Taiwan Relations Act, enacted in 1979 after Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, provides the framework for unofficial US relations with Taiwan and mandates that the United States make available defensive arms to the island.

–IANS

lkj/rs

Former PM Babis’ ANO party wins Czech election

Prague, Oct 5 (IANS) The Czech Republic’s opposition ANO party, led by former Prime Minister Andrej Babis, has won the country’s parliamentary election, according to official results from a near-complete vote count.

With over 99 per cent of the voting districts counted in the election, ANO had garnered nearly 34.6 per cent of the vote, while the ruling center-right SPOLU coalition came in second place with 23.3 per cent, Xinhua news agency reported.

Other parties clearing the 5 per cent threshold included the Mayors and Independents (STAN) with 11.2 per cent, the Pirate Party with 8.9 per cent, the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) with about 7.8 per cent, and the populist Motorists for Themselves with nearly 6.8 per cent.

Babis called the election result the absolute highlight of his political career.

“We are extremely happy and we thank everyone who came to the polls,” he said, claiming that ANO achieved a historic result.

Babis added that his party has a clear program and will change the country for the better.

“A government will be formed that will really work hard, that someone will manage and that will fulfill the program from the first moment,” he said.

The country’s current Prime Minister Petr Fiala, also chairman of the Civic Democratic Party in the Spolu alliance, acknowledged the victory of ANO. “I congratulate the winner of the elections, which is Andrej Babis.”

The Pirate party’s leader, Zdenek Hrib, declared that he would under no circumstances enter into a ruling coalition with ANO and certainly not with the SPD.

Instead, he indicated that his party could be a strong and vocal opposition.

The young Motorists for Themselves Party entered the Czech parliament ranking the sixth. The strong result positions the party as a potential junior partner in the upcoming government formation talks. The party’s chairman Petr Macinka declared that “we are the only truly right-wing party and we want to keep an eye on Babis.”

Katerina Konecna, the Stacilo! Movement’s electoral leader, said it is clear that the left-wing party will not be represented in the new parliament.

She expressed her doubts whether a right-wing government will be able to solve the problems that bother the citizens of the Czech Republic. “We are not stopping. We are moving forward.”

According to official data, the voter turnout was around 68.92 per cent.

The Czech Statistical Office said in a statement that this year’s voter turnout surpassed that from 2021, making it the highest since the parliamentary elections in 1998, when 74 per cent of voters came to the polls.

–IANS

int/rs