In her small apartment in West London, Rubina Khan recounts all the charges brought against her family members and their associates in their homeland of Pakistan, in response to her brother, the former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s announcement of his victory in the Pakistani elections, despite the alleged efforts made by the military to thwart his campaign.
This led The Times to prepare for an exclusive interview with Rubina (73 years old), who started by stating, “My brother has been in prison since May 2023, with two of my sisters also facing court appearances in various locations across the country on charges of terrorism and now also internet crimes.”
The accusation against her sister, Aleema Khan, as per a document reviewed by Rubina from The Times, is “publishing state-hating material through electronic and printed media, defaming various state institutions and sowing discord between the Pakistani army and the people.”
This former senior UN official further clarified that her other sister is facing corruption charges for buying a piece of adjoining barren land to her farm to plant some palm trees.
She also points out that Pakistani authorities abducted her nephew and his wife, while another had to flee in a speedboat from the city of Gawadar when they opened fire on him. Additionally, her sister’s driver has been in prison since May 2023, and an old family cook is also imprisoned despite being on a ventilator, according to her.
Imran Khan, the former imprisoned Prime Minister and cricket star, achieved a stunning victory for his candidates in the elections on Thursday in what The Times described as the biggest shock in Pakistan’s electoral history, despite the Pakistani army doing everything possible to prevent their success.
Khan (71 years old) was sentenced to 24 years in prison without trial in the past two weeks on a series of “bizarre” charges, including 7 years for an “illegal and un-Islamic marriage” to his third wife, the newspaper reported.
Although some of Khan’s party officials abandoned him in exchange for their release from prison, those who remained loyal were forced to contest the elections as independents, deprived of using their popular party symbol, the cricket bat.
Instead, they were allocated less attractive symbols like the shoe, donkey, or mouse, and with many candidates jailed or in hiding and unable to organize rallies, they resorted to social media campaigns.
Despite this alleged crackdown and the interruption of mobile phone services on election day and the abduction of some polling agents on the eve of the vote, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party emerged as the largest bloc, winning 100 seats out of 255 declared seats (out of a total of 266), which The Times referred to as “the silent revolution” against decades of military manipulation in politics.
According to The Times, this result caused panic at the nearby headquarters of the Pakistani army, who had expected their preferred candidate, thrice-former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (74 years old), to come to power.
After decades of direct or indirect rule, The Times states that “Pakistan’s powerful generals may have gone further than is acceptable,” a sentiment echoed by Rubina Khan, saying, “Everything they did made my brother more popular; they tried to kill him and then jailed him using these silly charges, as well as imprisoning his colleagues, even a cancer-stricken woman,” she added.
Imran Khan is held in a small, bug-infested cell, allowed to meet five people for half an hour every Tuesday, usually including his sisters and their children and his cousins, “He reads a lot, exercises, and eats simple prison food,” Rubina said, noting that her brother has a “very simple taste and is not a complainer.”
In conclusion, Khan’s sister stated, “Nawaz Sharif’s dream is for Imran to return to London as he did… but I know my brother, we fight a lot, but I can guarantee 100% that he will not leave, so they do not know what they are doing.”
