Apart from Imran, the Prime Ministers of Pakistan went to jail
Pakistan’s Prime Minister has a long history of going to jail.
Last Saturday, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan was arrested and sent to prison after being sentenced to three years in a corruption case related to the purchase and sale of state gifts (Toshakhana).
Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif, and Shahbaz Sharif were arrested and jailed, as was Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party chairman Imran Khan.
Hossain Shaheed Suhrawardy
Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy was Pakistan’s fifth Prime Minister. He was the Prime Minister of Pakistan from September 1956 to October 1957. He refused to support General Ayub Khan’s seizure of power. Due to this Suhrawardy was accused of involvement in anti-state activities. He was arrested in January 1962. He was detained without trial in a solitary cell of the Karachi Central Jail.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was Pakistan’s ninth Prime Minister. He was the Prime Minister of Pakistan from August 1973 to July 1977. He was arrested in September 1977. He was arrested in 1974 for his involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate a political opponent. This time he was arrested under martial law. He was sentenced to death. He was sentenced to death on April 4, 1979.
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto is the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He was the prime minister of Pakistan for two terms. The first time was from December 1988 to August 1990. The second time was from October 1993 to November 1996. He was arrested several times in his political career. He was arrested for the first time in August 1985. At this point, he was kept under house arrest for 90 days. He was finally arrested in 2007. Then Pakistan became agitated to remove General Parvez Musharraf from power. On December 27, 2007, Benazir was killed in a suicide bomb attack at an election meeting.
Nawaz Sharif
Nawaz Sharif is a three-time Prime Minister of Pakistan. But he never completed his term. He became Prime Minister for the first time in November 1990. He was in power till July 1993. He became Prime Minister for the second time in February 1997. He was in power till October 1999. He finally became the Prime Minister in June 2013. He was in power till July 2017. Nawaz was arrested in 1999 after General Pervez Musharraf seized power.
He was later deported. In September 2007, he returned to the nation. He was detained only hours after returning home. He was forced to flee to Saudi Arabia. Later he returned to Pakistan. Nawaz was arrested again in July 2018. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a corruption case. However, his sentence was suspended after two months. He was released from prison. He was arrested again in December of the same year. He was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment in one case. He was allowed to leave the country in November 2019 for medical treatment. Since then Nawaz is abroad.
Shaheed Khaqan Abbasi
PML-N leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was the Prime Minister of Pakistan from January 2017 to May 2018. He was detained in July 2019 on suspicion of corruption. He was released on February 27, 2020, after getting bail.
Imran Khan
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan was the 22nd Prime Minister of Pakistan. He was in this position from August 2018 to April 2022. In April last year, Imran’s government lost power after losing a confidence vote brought by the opposition in Pakistan’s National Assembly. Later, the opposition formed a coalition government under the leadership of Shahbaz Sharif.
After losing power, one case after another was filed against Imran. An arrest warrant was issued. He was arrested for the first time from the premises of Islamabad High Court on May 9 in the Al-Qadir Trust corruption case. The country’s Supreme Court later declared his arrest illegal.
He got bail in this case on May 12. After about three months, a court in Islamabad sentenced Imran to three years in prison yesterday in the Toshakhana case. After the verdict was announced, he was arrested from his house in Zaman Park in Lahore.
About the whereabouts of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, a source in the country’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) told Dawn on Tuesday that he has been kept at the bureau’s Rawalpindi/Islamabad regional headquarters.
The NAB source commented that Imran Khan has been placed in a ‘good place’. He will not be ‘treated harshly’.
The NAB source said that Imran Khan will be interrogated on the corruption charges for which he has been arrested.
Imran Khan was arrested yesterday from the High Court premises in the country’s capital Islamabad by the paramilitary Rangers.
Later, NAB said that they have arrested Imran Khan with the help of Rangers in a corruption case.
NAB sources said that Imran Khan will be produced in the anti-corruption court on Wednesday. NAB wants his remand.