- Rana Sanaullah supports meeting with Iman Khan.
- PTI’s Shafi Jan says govt avoiding meeting out of fear.
- PTI plans to go to public and “explain entire situation”.
Adviser to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs Senator Rana Sanaullah has suggested that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Sohail Afridi go on a hunger strike outside Adiala jail until death “in Imran Khan’s love”.
“The KP chief minister should observe the hunger strike until he dies in his love of the PTI founder,” Sanaullah said while speaking on Geo News programme Naya Pakistan on Friday.
The senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader said that a meeting should be allowed with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder in jail.
However, there should not be “hours-long press conferences” after meeting Khan, he added.
“There should be no talk of arson, violence, or marching on Islamabad. No law allows anyone to run a movement from inside jail,” Sanaullah said.
PTI leaders, including the KP CM, have stepped up efforts to meet the party founder, who has been incarcerated since August 2023, since his ouster from power via the opposition’s no-trust motion in April 2022.
On Thursday, CM Afridi began a 16-hour-long sit-in outside the Adiala Road after he was denied a meeting with Khan.
The former premier’s sister, Aleema Khan, later filed a contempt of court petition against the Adiala jail superintendent over a failure to comply with an earlier court order regarding a meeting with the former premier.
Meanwhile, Sanaullah said that the court had earlier granted the PTI permission for a meeting with Khan on the condition that they do not engage in politics.
‘Sanaullah afraid of Imran Khan’
Speaking during the same show, Special Assistant to KP CM on Information Shafi Jan claimed that Sanaullah himself had earlier said a meeting with the PTI founder “should take place”, yet the government was now avoiding it out of fear.
He said Sanaullah was “afraid of Imran Khan”, adding that recent health reports of the imprisoned former prime minister were “concerning”.
“We have reservations regarding the PTI founder’s health,” Jan said, recalling that the Islamabad High Court had ordered that the PTI founder be allowed to meet the KP chief minister.
He added that the party’s “entire leadership” was present outside Adiala jail on the day of the scheduled meeting.
Jan said the KP chief minister had expressed a desire to meet the chief justice as well.
“Yesterday, we held a symbolic sit-in on Adiala Road,” he added.
He alleged that “where the boundary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ends, these people start using violence against us”. He further claimed the government lacked the “moral courage” to present the PTI founder before the courts and that the former prime minister had “become a symbol of fear for the government”.
Sanaullah, however, maintained that the government had “no fear” of the PTI founder and insisted that a meeting should take place “according to the law”.
Jan said records showed that “120 people met Nawaz Sharif in a single day”, arguing that PTI leaders were being denied the same access. He added that the party would go to the public and “explain the entire situation”.
Sanaullah claimed intelligence reports had warned that PTI supporters were planning to stage a protest on November 26 similar to the one held last year.
Jan said the party did not need a meeting for protest purposes, adding that “Ali Amin was to be replaced, and we had already received that message”. He said PTI staged the sit-in because they were not allowed a meeting with the party founder.
“I have reached this position on the basis of votes cast in the name of the PTI founder,” Jan added.
