TTAP to stage sit-in outside Parliament House after Friday prayers following revelations about Imran’s vision loss

2026-02-12 - 18:36

The opposition alliance Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayin-i-Pakistan (TTAP) on Thursday said that it would stage a sit-in outside Parliament on Friday. The development came after the Supreme Court (SC) was informed that only 15 per cent vision was left in the PTI founder’s right eye, prompting a strong response from the PTI. The information was shared in a report submitted to the SC by PTI counsel Advocate Salman Safdar, who quoted the PTI founder as telling him that “he has been left with only 15pc vision in his right eye”. Videos shared by the TTAP on the social media platform X showed Senate opposition leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas speaking to the media alongside the PTI leadership. “After Friday prayers, we will stage a sit-in outside Parliament,” he said. “The government has not reached out. It has been three days since the report was submitted,” Abbas said. “We demand that Khan sahib be given full access to doctors whom he trusts,” he said. “I am told that Imran’s personal physician, Dr Asim Yusuf, is at Shifa Hospital, as are Dr Amir Awan and Dr Mazhar Ishaq; these are the two top specialists in Rawalpindi,” Abbas outlined. “We can trust them, so we demand that he (Imran) be shifted immediately and provided the right treatment,” he added. TTAP chief Mehmood Khan Achakzai, in a post on X, said, “A peaceful protest sit-in will begin outside the Parliament house from tomorrow. “We will present our demands during tomorrow’s sit-in, and the sit-in will continue until the demands are accepted. If, God forbid, something goes wrong in accepting the demands, the government will be responsible,” he said. ‘State has committed a crime against Imran’ Earlier in the day, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja, alongside Imran’s sister Aleema Khanum and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, spoke to the media outside the SC. “A crime has been committed against Imran Khan, and this state has committed this crime,” Raja contended. The PTI secretary general further stated that the “face of this crime is Abdul Ghafoor Anjum. We will not forget this name”. Anjum has served as the jail superintendent at the Adiala jail, where Imran is imprisoned. Safdar told the court on Thursday that according to jail staff, he was transferred on Jan 16, being replaced by Sajid Baig. The PTI secretary general said it was difficult for him to control his emotions after reading the report. Raja said the pain in Imran’s eye began in November, and “sometime in December, he completely lost vision in his right eye”. “Yet Imran was only given drops meant to treat irritation in the eye. He was not taken to hospital, and a qualified doctor to treat eye ailments was also not called. Instead, prison doctors kept giving him eye drops as Imran continued to complain that the pain in his eye was not subsiding,” he alleged. Raja further claimed: “When the situation worsened, Ghafoor Anjum was immediately replaced on January 16. The new administrator who replaced him also wasted 10 days before a doctor from Pims, Dr Arif, was called [to the Adiala jail] on January 26.” The PTI secretary general said Dr Arif, after examining Imran’s eye, advised that he should immediately be taken to the hospital. The former premier was administered treatment, including an injection, at the Pims hospital in Islamabad. “The word used [in the report for Imran’s ailment] is occlusion of the retina,” Raja said, adding that Imran was quoted as saying that after treatment at the hospital, he regained 10pc-15pc vision in his right eye. “He is able to detect light through that eye, but he has not [fully] regained his vision.” “This is a very painful and terrifying situation,” he said, adding that they had no information about what medical condition was affecting Imran’s vision. He stressed the need for Imran’s medical examination at the earliest by doctors trusted by the PTI founder, family and public. “The ongoing situation is unacceptable,” he asserted. Pointing out that there were no doctors in Pims to treat ailments pertaining to the retina while Shifa International in Islamabad had two such doctors, he alleged that they were “deliberately” not asked to examine and treat Imran. “So, several people are involved in the crime that has been committed against Imran. All of those names will be revealed; we will not hide any of them. Khan sahib has himself identified one of them, Abdul Ghafoor Anjum. A case will be filed against him immediately.” Raja further alleged that the “Islamabad High Court is also involved” in this matter, questioning why Imran’s cases were not being fixed for hearing. Meanwhile, “the condition of one of the eyes of the biggest leader of this nation is very concerning, and we have no information about his overall health condition”. Despite this, Raja continued, Imran had directed his party to approach the courts. “We will not spare these courts. This nation and history will avenge the crime committed by these courts,” he said, demanding that Imran’s cases be fixed for hearing. He also asserted that no reason was left to keep Imran behind bars and “freedom is his right now”. “He will get freedom and this nation will get him freedom. We will fight his case inside and outside courts,” Raja said. Imran’s sister, Aleema, said that the report had shattered her heart. “We haven’t done enough for a person who has been in jail for two-and-a-half years,” she said. She said that the jail authorities knew about Imran’s health but failed to arrange adequate treatment for him. “Imran Khan is in jail because our judiciary is not free,” she asserted. Speaking to the media later in the day, CM Afridi said that they had “options” and they were considering them. He announced that PTI’s core committee, political committee and TTAP leaders were set to meet later in the day to deliberate over those options. The KP CM recalled that it had been over 900 days since Imran’s incarceration, but he had “never complained” about his health. But now, he said, “We have called you and are doing our second press conference, which means that this is serious.” “God forbids. If there were an irreversible loss, then there would be no use in raising our voices,” Afridi stated, adding that the PTI would take some “serious” steps. Afridi branded the jail authorities’ negligence of Imran’s worsening eye condition a “criminal act”. “It violates human rights, the law, the Constitution, jail manuals and is just inhumane,” the chief minister stated. “When [former premier] Nawaz Sharif experienced health issues, the judiciary and our media fraternity collectively raised their voices, even though we knew that the tests or condition were false,” he added, recounting that despite this, the PML-N supremo was allowed to leave the country for medical treatment. “This man is a former premier and the chairman of the country’s largest political party. He is in pain right now and has serious issues,” he stressed. “We have to rise above politics and, on humanitarian and legal grounds, raise our voices for him,” he said. Senate opposition leader demands formation of medical board Abbas said in a post on X earlier in the day that he was “formally sending the full details of this matter, evidence and timeline to all national and international human rights organisations and ambassadors stationed in Pakistan so that they might take notice of this grave situation”. In