New Delhi: Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan’s whirlwind trip to hospital early Friday ended within a few hours after a medical examination. Amid court orders for medical access and the Pakistan government’s refusal, the 73-year-old was taken from Adiala Jail at night under heavy security, examined and sent back.
Visuals on social media show Khan purportedly getting out of an ambulance amid tight security. According to the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s ruling, he was to remain in hospital until the next hearing on 16 September.
Government officials initially said he had been examined at Islamabad’s Shifa International Hospital, a private facility, but Information Minister Attaullah Tarar later said the examination took place at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, or PIMS, a government-run hospital.
Tarar said doctors found him “medically fit”. His sister, Uzma Khan, was present. Khan was sent back to Adiala Jail at about 5 am.
بریکنگ نیوز 🚨
ساری پابندیاں وڑ گئیں، کوئی روک نہ پایا، خان کی پکچر وائرل ہوگئی pic.twitter.com/rSBuiPVXkc
— Imran Riaz Khan Fan (@ImranRaizKhan) August 20, 2026
Officials attributed the change in location to security concerns after supporters gathered near Shifa Hospital, Dawn reported.
The episode followed a ruling Tuesday by a three-member Supreme Court bench directing authorities to transfer Khan to Shifa Hospital within two days. The court said prisoners remained entitled to humane treatment and necessary medical care despite being incarcerated.
Khan’s family has repeatedly raised concerns about his health, particularly an eye condition diagnosed earlier this year involving the central retinal vein in his right eye. The government has maintained that the former prime minister is receiving adequate medical care, and has denied allegations that officials are deliberately neglecting his health.
The dispute intensified on Thursday when the Supreme Court registrar’s office returned a government petition seeking to overturn the order requiring Khan’s transfer to hospital. The petition was reportedly returned because of incomplete paperwork, and the government is expected to submit it again.
Security around Shifa Hospital was unusually heavy late Thursday. About 800 police and other law-enforcement personnel were deployed around the hospital and surrounding roads, according to an Islamabad police order.
Khan has been imprisoned since August 2023 and remains a central figure in Pakistan’s political confrontation between his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party and the government. He is serving a 14-year sentence in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust corruption case, while facing other legal challenges.
In a parallel development, even as the country’s Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir consolidated his military overreach in a new Defence Act, applicable retrospectively post the constitutional amendments last year and passed in half-an-hour in the National Assembly on Thursday amid an Opposition boycott, an agreement was reached in principle same day among Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, National Assembly Opposition Leader Mehmood Khan Achakzai and Senate Opposition Leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas to form a “united Opposition”.
The participants in the meetings expressed concern over and condemned the “government’s attitude and behaviour towards the Opposition in the National Assembly and Senate,” Dawn reported.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
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