Imran Khan’s three sisters believe Pakistani authorities are trying to “break” their brother, and fear he is going blind in solitary confinement.
The former cricketer-turned-prime minister has been jailed since 2023, serving sentences for alleged corruption and leaking of state secrets. He remains a popular figure in the country and claims his imprisonment is a state-sponsored campaign to keep him out of power.
His sisters believe the conditions to which he is subjected are an attempt to get him to accept a deal to quit politics.
Uzma Khanum, 65, was the last person in her family to visit her brother in December. She told The Sunday Times: “Before he was in good spirits but when I saw him last, he had been in solitary for just over four weeks and he was so upset.
“He said, ‘No one is allowed to speak to me, even the guards’. He kept repeating ‘nothing can be worse than solitary confinement’ and now it’s been around seven months … He said, ‘I know they are trying to break me, but they won’t’.”
She said there was water coming from his right eye, and when his lawyer saw Mr Khan in April, he couldn’t see anything from it.
“Then when he saw him in April, Imran said he had seen a government doctor who told him he had a blood clot and the eye is damaged, with 85 per cent permanent vision loss,” she added.
“They want to break him to make a deal and maybe the eye is also a way.”
The Pakistani government said he was undergoing treatment and had surgery in late January to remove the blood clot.
Ms Khanum said his survival had been his reading books, “and now if he can’t read — and can’t speak to anyone …”
The sisters visit Adiala prison for their weekly visitation hours each Tuesday, however, they are never allowed to see their brother, despite a court order granting them a weekly visit.
“They have beaten us, teargassed us, drenched us with water cannons but still we come — so now they have given up on us,” Ms Khanum said.
She says her brother refuses to make a deal, “he says, ‘What’s the value of my life?’
“‘The cause has to be bigger than yourself. If you do not stand up to this tyranny, not only you but your children will be slaves to it.’”
In March, Khan’s son called for the United Nations to intervene and urge Pakistan to release his father.
Kasim Khan said his father had been subjected to “torture” in prison and had been held in jail for nearly 1,000 days, confined to a solitary cell meant for death row inmates.
Both his family and leaders of the Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party he founded are concerned about Mr Khan’s deteriorating health condition in jail.
Their father has been unable to see his children since 2022 and has not spoken to them since March.
