London, Sep 6 : The sons of former Pakistan captain and prime minister Imran Khan have slammed Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Mohsin Naqvi, saying that the board has made ‘absolute fools of themselves’ over threats to abandon the recent Lord’s Test against England.
The row erupted during the second Test when Sky Sports broadcasted an interview conducted by former England captain Michael Atherton with Khan’s sons, Sulaiman and Kasim. The pair spoke about their imprisoned father’s deteriorating health and prison conditions in Pakistan, leading to reports emerging that the PCB threatened not to take the field in the post-lunch session on day one unless the interview’s airing was cancelled.
“They made absolute fools of themselves,” Kasim told The Telegraph on Sunday. Sulaiman, meanwhile, expressed shock at the PCB’s reaction to the interview. “I was expecting some sort of response. But I didn't think they would be so tactless as to threaten not to take to the field.
“It shouldn't be in the remit of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to ask for an interview about an ex-Pakistan player, somebody who lived in England for 22 years, to be taken down. This wasn't about politics, but about the humanitarian situation and his health.”
With Naqvi, also Pakistan's Interior Minister, under immense spotlight, Kasim and Sulaiman have raised urgent safety concerns regarding Khan’s solitary confinement. “They're clearly hoping to kill him in there. They want to silence him as secretly as possible and just slowly make him fade into nothing.
“That's a very difficult thing to do with the most popular person in Pakistan right now. Their strategy, whenever we speak, is to let everything fizzle out and then impose more brutal restrictions that make it even harder for him to survive.”
Pakistani authorities have consistently denied allegations of mistreatment, maintaining that Khan receives full medical care, something which Sulaiman has rejected. “The worrying theory we're hearing is that they're drip-feeding these reports of his ailing health and pretending that they're trying to help him, just to lay the ground for something worse to happen. Then they can wash their hands and say: 'He's just an old man who died, and we had nothing to do with it.’
“They haven't given us proof of any of this. It's all just hearsay from government sources – there's no transparency, they don't want to give anyone access, so how are we supposed to believe any of it? The last verifiable piece of information we had was from him, six months ago, when he spoke about his eye and how it had been neglected.”
‘PCB made absolute fools of themselves’ - Imran Khan’s sons hit out over Lord’s Test row
