- They applied for visa at Pakistan High Commission in London.
- Chaudhry asks Aleema why they need visa if they have NICOPs.
- PTI has said that there’s no doubt over Khan’s son’s visit.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan’s sons are awaiting approval from the interior ministry, his sister, Aleema Khan, said on Friday, as they plan on visiting the country.
“A few days ago, Suleiman [Khan] and Kasim [Khan] applied for their visas with the Pakistan High Commission in London,” Aleema, who had previously announced the duo’s plan to visit Pakistan, said in a post on X.
“The ambassador has intimated that he is awaiting approval from the Ministry of Interior in Islamabad,” she added.
Minister of State Talal Chaudhry was quick to respond, questioning Aleema’s earlier claim that Khan’s children had National Identity Cards for Overseas Pakistanis — and if so, why would they need visas.
“You previously stated that the children hold NICOPs. If that is true, they do not require visas to enter Pakistan,” Chaudhry said in a post on X.
“If they do need visas, that means they are not ‘Pakistani Nationals’. What is the real truth behind it all?” he asked.
This comes on the heels of reports that Khan had barred his children — who resided in the United Kingdom — from travelling to Pakistan and partaking in any political activity.
However, soon after such reports surfaced, the party rubbished them, stating that there’s no doubt that Suleman (28) and Kasim (26) would visit Pakistan for their father.
The 71-year-old cricketer-turned-politician has been behind bars since August 2023 after he was booked in multiple cases ranging from corruption to terrorism since his ouster from power via the opposition’s no-trust motion in April 2022.
PTI spokesperson Sheikh Waqas Akram, in his statements, said that their arrival date hasn’t been determined, but there’s “no doubt” that they are coming.
The former prime minister’s sons were previously in the United States meeting the country’s lawmakers, reportedly to lobby for their father’s release, ahead of their expected visit to Pakistan before the August 5 protest.
Kasim called attention to their father’s imprisonment for the first time publicly in May. Talking to X in June, he expressed concern over Imran’s condition in jail.
He wrote: “My father, former prime minister Imran Khan, has now spent over 700 days in prison — held in solitary confinement. He is denied access to his lawyers, not allowed visits from his family, fully cut off from us (his children), and even his personal doctor is refused entry. This is not justice. It is a deliberate attempt to isolate and break a man who stands for rule of law, democracy and Pakistan.”
