ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has signalled that Imran Khan could be moved out of Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail to Islamabad’s newly completed Model Jail, saying that “whosoever is a prisoner of Islamabad will be shifted here” once Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif opens the facility in the coming days.
Naqvi was answering a reporter’s question during a visit to the jail in Sector H-16 on Tuesday, The Express Tribune reported. Asked directly whether the PTI founder would be among those moved, he said: “My specific answer is that whosoever is a prisoner of Islamabad will be shifted here.” Jail sources told the newspaper that about 1,500 prisoners, including Imran, are expected to be moved in the first phase, possibly between November 20 and 30, and that a special ward for him has been completed.
A jail 17 years in the making
The interior minister said the project had been “pending for 17 years”: work began in 2009, construction only started in 2016, and when he first visited in 2024 it was 40 to 50 per cent complete and “had nearly been abandoned”. He credited Minister of State Talal Chaudhry and the Capital Development Authority for finishing it, and said he had inspected the kitchen, hospital, mess and barracks.
Spread over 90 acres, the complex is designed for 2,000 inmates and will be the capital’s first purpose-built prison. The first phase includes three barracks, a 35-bed hospital, a mosque and a kitchen, with three to four thousand more prisoners to follow in a second phase. Islamabad has never had its own jail, so every undertrial and convicted prisoner from the capital’s courts is held at Adiala and driven back and forth for hearings.
Why the move matters
Imran has been in jail since August 2023 and is serving a sentence in the £190 million corruption case at Adiala, where he also faces anti-terrorism trials over the May 9, 2023 riots. Access to him has been a constant flashpoint, with PTI and his family repeatedly going to court over meetings and medical treatment, and any transfer to a new facility is likely to be closely watched by the party.
