ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — Imran Khan has told the PTI to stick firmly to its ideology and not to bow, the party’s secretary general, Salman Akram Raja, said on Thursday, a day after the jailed PTI founder met his lawyers in Adiala jail.
Raja said in a television interview that he had held several detailed conversations with Barrister Salman Safdar after Safdar’s meeting with Imran. “Imran Khan’s fundamental message was to stick firmly to the ideology,” he said, adding that the party would act on his directives.
Safdar and Latif Khosa met Imran and his wife, Bushra Bibi, at Adiala jail on Wednesday for about three hours, a day after the Islamabad High Court ordered the authorities to allow the meeting. The lawyers had told the court they could not argue the appeals in the £190 million case without first consulting their clients. Khosa said after the meeting that Imran’s blood pressure had been swinging.
Raja said the conversation had not been secret, as the proceedings were recorded. He said Imran had described Mahmood Khan Achakzai and Allama Raja Nasir Abbas as leaders who would neither bow down nor be bought.
He acknowledged that a small group within the party was unhappy with him, and said some in the PTI wanted to seize the opportunities available at this time, including on the proposed 28th Amendment, but that Imran’s message was the opposite. Raja said he would first put Imran’s instructions on the amendment before the party leadership.
On new provinces, Raja said Imran had always supported new administrative units but wanted clarity on the background and the process, and a transparent public consultation. “We will not rush into becoming part of a process that distorts history,” Raja said. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi called on Thursday for a referendum on the question, and later flew to Nawabshah for talks with President Asif Ali Zardari.
Raja also said the party was worried about Imran’s health. He said Imran’s blood pressure was unstable and had reached 193 on Saturday, though Imran himself considered the concern unnecessary.
The prime minister’s adviser on political affairs, Rana Sanaullah, rejected suggestions that the lawyers’ meeting had been allowed to advance talks on the 28th Amendment. “This political theory that the meeting was held to discuss the 28th Amendment is completely incorrect,” he said in a separate television interview.
Sanaullah said it had been “a simple meeting of the lawyers”, who had told the court they would argue the appeals once they had consulted Imran. He said the court would decide the appeals on merit within a few days, after which the speculation would fade.
Asked whether Imran could be moved to a private hospital, Sanaullah said that would depend on the medical panel examining him. If a government hospital had the facilities he needed, the law required a convict to be treated there, he said.
On Thursday, two of Imran’s sisters were freed after seven weeks in detention.
