There are moments when politics must give way to humanity. This is one such moment for Pakistan.
The appeal by 21 former international cricket captains, including India’s Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Dilip Vengsarkar, urging Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to ensure proper medical care for Imran Khan is not a political intervention. It is a deeply human appeal from men who shared the cricket field with a man who once led Pakistan to its greatest cricketing triumph—the 1992 World Cup.
And perhaps Pakistan’s political establishment, particularly Prime Minister Sharif and Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir, should pause and listen.
The facts are simple. Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered that the 73-year-old former Prime Minister be transferred to hospital for a detailed medical examination, with a medical board including specialists and, according to reports, his personal doctor. The Court also restored weekly family visits. Khan was subsequently taken for medical examination and returned to Adiala Jail within hours. While the government says he was examined by specialists and declared medically fit, his family and political colleagues have questioned whether the court-directed process was fully honoured.
That disagreement can be settled very easily: let the complete medical examination take place.
What is the Pakistani establishment afraid of?
This is not a demand to release Imran Khan. It is not a demand to overturn a conviction. It is not even an appeal to settle Pakistan’s political disputes in the streets. The former captains have made three remarkably modest requests: allow the court-directed independent medical assessment, permit the weekly family meetings ordered by the Court, and provide whatever treatment doctors recommend without delay.
Surely, none of these should frighten a state that claims faith in law, democracy and, above all, Allah.
Imran Khan may have become the most formidable political opponent of Pakistan’s powerful establishment. His political conduct, policies and confrontations with the military can certainly be debated. His supporters may believe that the numerous cases against him are politically motivated; the government rejects that allegation. Khan has also faced serious convictions, including in corruption-related cases, and those legal proceedings must be allowed to run their course.
But a prisoner does not cease to be a human being merely because he is a political adversary.
And Pakistan cannot erase Imran Khan’s contribution to the country’s history.
Before he became Prime Minister, before he became the most polarising political figure in Pakistan, he was the captain who gave his nation its greatest cricketing moment. He brought together a team that many had written off and lifted the World Cup at Melbourne in 1992. He became an international sporting icon and, for millions of Pakistanis, a symbol of national pride.
That contribution cannot be imprisoned.
Politics is temporary. Power is temporary. Governments change. Generals retire. Prime ministers come and go. But a nation’s sporting heroes become part of its permanent collective memory.
Pakistan therefore has an opportunity—not to surrender politically, but to rise morally.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif should simply ensure that the Supreme Court’s medical directions are implemented in letter and spirit. General Asim Munir, too, has an opportunity to demonstrate that Pakistan’s powerful establishment is bigger than one political rivalry and secure enough to show compassion to a former Prime Minister.
The former cricket captains have reminded Pakistan of something that politics often makes people forget: humanity has no party, no uniform and no border.
For a country that repeatedly invokes faith, perhaps this is the moment to remember one of its simplest teachings—mercy is not weakness.
Pakistanis should ask themselves one question: when the political battles of today become history tomorrow, what will they remember?
The victory of one faction over another—or the day their country chose to be humane?
Let Imran Khan receive the medical care the Court has directed. Let his family meet him. Let the doctors do their duty. Let the courts decide his legal fate.
That is not a favour to Imran Khan.
It is a favour to Pakistan.
