The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf parliamentary party has decided to launch a nationwide movement from August 5 to release party chief Imran Khan and accept other demands, a day that will mark the end of the former prime minister’s third year in prison.The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by the party’s interim president Barrister Gohar Ali Khan at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House in Islamabad, where PTI legislators discussed parliamentary affairs and the party’s strategy going forward.PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja told Dawn that the movement will include public meetings, demonstrations and a long march. “It was also decided to seek the opinions of Mahmood Khan Achakzai and Allama Raja Nasir Abbas to finalize plans for the protest and other activities,” he said.Johar said in a press conference that the meeting discussed the health condition of Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi. He said August 5 would mark the end of three years of imprisonment of the PTI founder, and rallies would be organized across the country to mark the occasion.Khan was arrested on August 5, 2023 after an Islamic court in Islamabad found him guilty of corrupt practices in the Tosha Khanna case. He has since been convicted in several cases and remains in solitary confinement in Adiala Prison in Rawalpindi.
Raja claimed that Khan has been kept in solitary confinement for several months and none of his family or lawyers have been allowed to meet him since December last year. “He does not receive proper medical care and does not get justice from the courts. The oppression and injustice in the country must end,” he said.He also warned the government against launching a crackdown on party workers.“Extreme brutality is being carried out here. Imran Khan is denied access to his lawyer, while his sisters are also prevented from seeing him,” Raja said as he sat surrounded by party workers outside the prison.Every week, Khan’s sisters, lawyers and party workers gather outside Adiala prison to pressure the government to allow the family to meet him. On June 14, Khan was transferred to a hospital in Islamabad for treatment of his ailing right eye, and was subsequently returned to prison.In a separate development, PTI lawyer Owais Younis Chaudhry submitted a list of names of six leaders to the Adiala Jail administration to meet Imran Khan. The list includes Haji Amanullah Awan, Muhammad Shahid Ali Shahane, Syed Hamid Ehsan, Sajjad Ali Butt, Noman Mughal and Aqsa Hayat Lali.
