Pakistan’s imprisoned former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has been shifted to a hospital in Lahore on doctors’ advice following the opposition politician’s complaint of heart pain, his family said.
Qureshi, who is one of the top leaders of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party, has been behind bars in Kot Lakhpat Jail in cases that the party has described as fake, saying the politicians have not been allowed to have a due legal process.
He has been in custody for almost two years now.
Qureshi’s son Zain Hussain Qureshi, who is a member of the Parliament, said in social media post that his father felt unwell Saturday morning.
After jail doctors examined him, the politicians was moved to the Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) on Saturday after he suffered heart pain, his lawyer said on Saturday.
“Doctors have decided to keep him under obsrvation for the next few days,” Zain Qureshi wrote on X platform.
Pakistan’s government, which came to power after controversial elections in 2024, has note been able to find a solution to political instability in the country that spawned with the ouster of Imran Khan’s government in April 2022.
The PTI has accused elements in the establishment and the current government rulers of stealing people’s mandate in February 2024 elections.
Qureshi, a lawyer, has been indicted in cases related to May 9, 2023 riots.
His friends and supporters in the legal fraternity have termed cases against Qureshi as “baseless” and “frivolous,” saying he has been illegally detained and that his only crime has been his unflinching loyalty to Imran Khan.
Mushahid Hussain Sayed, a former PML-N senator and now an independent voice in Pakistan politics, called Qureshi a “distinguished son of Pakistan and a Prisoner of Conscience,” and urged his immediate release.
The current government, made up of PPP and PML-N, has not officially commented on calls for dismissal of cases against Qureshi, and his release.
