Pakistan’s military on Wednesday issued a rare public denial of viral rumours that jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan had died in custody at Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, following 24 hours of severe political unrest and public anxiety across the country.
The crisis erupted after US-based Pakistani journalist Wajahat Saeed Khan published a two-part video broadcast, titled “Is Khan Still With Us” and “What Happens After Khan,” in which he said three senior military sources — officials he identified as being based at the Army’s General Staff, Military Intelligence and C4I directorates at General Headquarters in Rawalpindi — had expressed fear that the 73-year-old opposition leader might have died in prison. Khan acknowledged the information was not independently confirmed and was based on internal concern rather than any formal report, but the claim spread rapidly across social media, amplified by unverified Afghan media reports making similar allegations.
The Inter-Services Public Relations Directorate (ISPR), the military’s media wing, firmly rejected the reports as false, marking an unusually direct intervention by the army into questions about the jailed former Prime Minister’s fate. Wajahat Saeed Khan later walked back his claim and welcomed the military’s statement, saying the fact that ISPR had responded at all was itself reassuring.
The episode is the latest in a recurring pattern. Khan’s son, Kasim Khan, had separately demanded proof of life days earlier, saying his father had spent 845 days in detention, including six recent weeks allegedly in a “death cell” with no family contact. Khan’s sisters have said they have repeatedly been denied court-mandated visitation despite Islamabad High Court orders. Adiala Jail authorities have insisted Khan remains in “completely good health,” even as rumours about his condition continue to resurface whenever family access is restricted.
— Daily Archives, World Desk