Lahore: Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan has been provided with a slew of new facilities at Attock District Jail and expressed his satisfaction over them to a top police officer during his visit to the prison in the Punjab province, a media report said Monday.
Punjab IG Prisons Mian Farooq Nazir Sunday visited Khan, who is serving a three-year jail term after being sentenced in the Toshakhana corruption case earlier this month, and took stock of the facilities provided to the 70-year-old Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman.
According to the jail officials, the officer reviewed the location of the cameras installed in Khan’s barrack to ensure his privacy.
The jail officials said Khan had been given a bed, pillow, mattress, chair, and air cooler, as per the prison law. He has also been provided with a fan, a prayer room, a copy of the Quran with English translation, books, a newspaper, thermos, dates, honey, tissue papers and perfume, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.
Khan expressed his satisfaction over the facilities provided to him at Attock District Jail when Punjab IG Prisons Nazir visited him there, the report said.
The officials said Khan’s new washroom has a Western toilet seat, and a wash basin and is stocked with a bar of soap, an air freshener towel and tissue papers.
Five doctors, each of them working for eight hours, have been appointed to provide medical facilities to the former prime minister. Special food is also provided to the PTI chief with the approval of the IG prisons. The food is served to him by a special team after being examined by a doctor, the report said.
The additional facilities were provided to Khan after his wife and party expressed concerns over his well-being and safety.
The PTI core committee had claimed that Khan was being denied the right to order food and water from home, and maybe poisoned during his incarceration.
The party also deemed his imprisonment a breach of regulations.
His wife Bushra Bibi Friday urged the Supreme Court to take “serious notice” of her husband’s deteriorating health, saying it posed a ‘serious danger’ to his life. She moved the apex court following her meeting with the cricketer-turned-politician at the prison August 22.
Earlier, in her letter to the Punjab home secretary, the 49-year-old wife of PTI chairman wrote that the court had directed the authorities concerned to shift her husband from Attock jail in Punjab to Adiala prison in Rawalpindi.
“My husband has been imprisoned in Attock jail without any justification. According to the law, my husband should be transferred to Adiala jail,” she said, adding that Khan should be provided B-class facilities in the prison given his social and political status.
Bushra also said Khan “can be poisoned” in Attock jail.
Khan was arrested from his Lahore house shortly after an Islamabad trial court found him guilty of “corrupt practices” in the Toshakhana corruption case and has been incarcerated since August 5.
He was sentenced on charges of unlawfully selling state gifts acquired by him and his family during his 2018-2022 tenure.
Khan has also been barred from politics for five years, preventing him from contesting an upcoming election. He has denied any wrongdoing.
PTI