New Delhi: Pakistan has quickly moved on from the pain of the World Cup debacle, thanks to none other than Imran Khan. He has come to their rescue, diverting their attention. Now, Pakistanis are analysing whether Khan is a ‘playboy’ or ‘husband material’.
The debate caught attention after Pakistan’s GeoTV Monday asked Khawar Maneka, the ex-husband of Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, about his much discussed divorce. Once Khawar began, there was no stopping him.
Imran Khan has often acknowledged that he was once “a playboy”. But little would he have known that this admission would haunt him while when he is lodged in jail. His marriage to Bushra Bibi, the events leading up to it, and his past ‘playboy’ image are now back in national TV debates.
Khawar Maneka began by describing his ‘happy marriage for 28 years’ with Bushra Bibi, a union that was ‘filled with love and was seen as the epitome of love’ for others until Imran Khan walked in. Even Khawar’s mother, he claimed, had told him not to let him in the house because “he’s not a good man’. Khawar chose not to listen.
Details divulged by Khawar could be a script for a television show. As Bushra’s peer murshid (spiritual guide), Khan would often visit their house and chat with her, including late at night on a phone number that Khan’s friend Farah Gogi had given her at the PTI chief’s request. One day, Khawar made his domestic help ask Khan to leave and “scolded” his wife for allowing a man in the house in his absence.
Bushra “separated from me” six months prior to her wedding with Khan, Khawar said, adding that despite his urging, she refused to return to her home in Pakpattan city, Punjab.
Khawar claimed that one day, Farah Gogi sent him a text message requesting that he get a divorce from “Pinky”, Bushra’s alias.
“I approached Bushra and inquired, ‘Do you want a divorce?’ She bowed her head and did not answer,” said Khawar. Later she divorced him and married Khan.
‘Mahatma Khan’
TV news anchors are now having a field day. A guest on 24 News minced no words in saying that Khan’s action justifies his playboy image: “He has already confessed to being a playboy. Why do you expect sincerity from him? This is nothing new for Mahatma Khan.”
The 24 News anchor too couldn’t stay neutral, adding much drama to the debate. “Not only did he destroy a 76-year-old country but he also destroyed a 28-year-long marriage,” he said.
In a ‘we told you’ moment, The News said that Khawar’s interview confirms the news they broke in relation to Khan’s marriage in 2018. However, both Khawar and GeoTV claimed that they broke the news first. It was on GeoTV that Khawar had first heard of his wife’s marriage with Imran Khan.
On the Imran-Bushra relationship and the level of debate on TV, Journalist Mansoor Ali Khan said “the s*** has hit the fan”. He added that before airing the interview, GeoTV should have run a disclaimer that it was “not advisable to be watched by children”.
Social media loyalties, however, remain firm for Khan. Most users decried the interview. From Pakistani politics to Pakistani journalism, everything is to blame—except Khan.
A user on X called the GeoTV programme ‘a gutter show’. “Absolutely shameless things happening just to malign #ImranKhan.”
Another wrote that “they’re doing to Bushra what they did to Jemima years ago.”
Ironically, Khawar’s interview comes a week after he was released in an anti-corruption case for land grab when he tried to construct a marriage hall in place of a graveyard in Punjab.
Khawar vigorously denied any compulsion to make the claims against his ex-wife and Imran Khan, though, while also denying the land grabbing charges that resulted in his arrest. When the host asked him why he had waited several years to make his revelation, he said, “I am tired of holding it in; the burden is too heavy to carry any longer.”
(Edited by Prashant)