A report claimed he had already married, but Khan’s party later said she was considering his proposal. The man himself hit out at Nawaz Sharif for slander.
New Delhi: Pakistani media is abuzz with reports of cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan proposing marriage to Bushra Maneka.
Popularly called ‘Pinki Bibi’, Bushra is a ‘spiritual adviser’ and a mother of five from her first husband.
TheNews CN, which broke the story Saturday, alleged that Khan, who heads the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political party, had secretly married the woman he used to visit for spiritual guidance.
“The PTI chairman inaugurated 2018 by tying the knot with the woman on the night of 1 January in Lahore, and came straight from there the next day to appear before the anti-terrorism court in Islamabad that granted him bail,” the report claimed.
While PTI leaders were quick to reject the report, rumours of Khan’s proposal instantly sent Pakistani Twitterati into a tizzy as they discussed his ‘hat-trick’.
However, shortly after the PTI’s chief whip Shireen Mazari termed the report “ridiculous” and “pathetic”, the party issued an official statement where it confirmed that Khan had in fact proposed marriage to Maneka, believed to be a respected pir (faith healer) in Pakpattan.
The statement also said that Maneka had “asked for time to make a final decision after consulting her family, including her children”.
It didn’t take long for Khan to break his silence and voice his own opinion through a series of scathing tweets.
Khan asked whether he had committed a crime by wanting to get married, and blamed his political rival, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, for stooping low and playing dirty.
Khan also said his primary concern was for his children and Bushra Begum, who belonged to a conservative family.
Bushra’s ex-husband Khawar Maneka also issued his own statement in a video after allegations of Khan luring his ex-wife away from him surfaced.
Calling the reports “baseless and fake”, Khawar said that he had never seen a wife more faithful than Bushra Maneka and a man more pious than Imran Khan, who considers his house a spiritual place.
Adding to this mix of detractors and well-wishers, a parody account of Bushra, @NajoomiBhabhi, which has over 61k followers, issued a series of hilariously snide tweets about the wedding.
