Imran Khan This article is about the Pakistani politician. For other people named Imran Khan, see Imran Khan (disambiguation). Imran Khan عمران خان Imrankhanpti.jpg Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Incumbent Assumed office 25 April 1998 Deputy Shah Mehmood Qureshi Preceded by Position established Member of the National Assembly Incumbent Assumed office 11 May 2013 Preceded by Hanif Abbasi Constituency Constituency NA-56 In office 10 October 2002 – 3 November 2007 Preceded by Constituency established Succeeded by Nawabzada Malik Amad Khan Constituency Constituency NA-71 Chancellor of the University of Bradford Incumbent Assumed office 7 December 2005 Preceded by The Baroness Lockwood Personal details Born Imran Khan Niazi 5 October 1952 (age 62) Lahore, Pakistan Nationality Pakistan Pakistani Political party PTI Spouse(s) Jemima Khan (1995–2004) Children 2 Alma mater Keble College, Oxford Profession Cricketer Author Philanthropist Politician Religion Islam Imran Khan (Urdu: عِمران خان) (born Imran Khan Niazi (Urdu: عِمران خان نِیازی) on 5 October 1952[1][2]) is a Pakistani politician and former cricketer. He played international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century and, after retiring, entered politics. Besides his political activism, Khan is also a philanthropist, cricket commentator, chancellor of the University of Bradford and founding chairman of the Board of Governors of Shaukat Khanum Hospital. He also founded Namal College, Mianwali in 2008. He was Pakistans most successful cricket captain,[3] leading his country to victory at the 1992 Cricket World Cup, playing for the Pakistani cricket team from 1971 to 1992, and serving as its captain intermittently throughout 1982–1992.[4] After retiring from cricket at the end of the 1987 World Cup in 1988, owing to popular demand he was requested to come back by the president of Pakistan Zia ul Haq to lead the team once again. At the age of 39, Khan led his team to Pakistans first and only One Day World Cup victory in 1992. With 3807 runs and 362 wickets in Test cricket, he is one of eight world cricketers to have achieved an All-rounders Triple in Test matches.[5] On 14 July 2010, Khan was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.[6] In April 1996, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) political party was established[7] and Khan became its chairman. He represented Mianwali as a member of the National Assembly from November 2002 to October 2007, he was again elected on 11 May 2013, while his party gained 35 seats in the National Assembly.[8][9][10] Global Post mentioned him third in a list of nine world leaders of 2012 and recognized Khan as the face of the anti-drone movement in Pakistan.[11] According to Asia Society, Khan was voted as Asia’s Person of the Year 2012.[12] As the Pew Research Center, in 2012 a majority of Pakistani respondents offered a favorable opinion of Khan. The survey also revealed Khans fame among youth.[13] Personal life Background Further information: Family of Imran Khan Imran Khan was born in Lahore into a family of Pashtun origin, the only son of Ikramullah Khan Niazi, a civil engineer, and his wife Shaukat Khanum.[14] Long settled in Mianwali in northwestern Punjab, the family are of Pashtun ethnicity and belong to the Niazi Shermankhel tribe.[15] Niazi is a branch of Lohani pashtuns.[16] A quiet and shy boy in his youth, Khan grew up with his four sisters in relatively affluent (upper middle-class) circumstances[17] and received a privileged education. He was educated at Aitchison College in Lahore and the Royal Grammar School Worcester in England, where he excelled at cricket. In 1972 he enrolled in Keble College, Oxford where he read philosophy, politics and economics, graduating with honours in 1975.[18] Khans mother hailed from the Burki family which had produced several successful cricketers,[14] including such household names as cricketers Javed Burki, Majid Khan[15] and, paternally (from the Niazi tribe then), to Misbah-ul-Haq.[19] Khan is also a descendant of the Sufi warrior-poet and inventor of the Pashto alphabet, Pir Roshan, who hailed from his maternal familys ancestral Kaniguram town in South Waziristan,[20] and a cousin to one of Pakistans leading English-language columnist, Khaled Ahmed.[21] On 16 May 1995, Khan married Jemima Goldsmith, in a two-minute ceremony conducted in Urdu in Paris. A month later, on 21 June, they were married again in a civil ceremony at the Richmond registry office in England.[22] Jemima converted to Islam. Khans later decision to join politics alarmed opposition politicians and intelligence agencies mainly because of Jemimas half Jewish ancestry, this became a point of criticism especially by Islamic parties who alleged that he was related to Zionists. The couple have two sons, Sulaiman Isa and Kasim.[23] Rumours circulated that the couples marriage was in crisis. Jemima denied the rumours by publishing an advertisement in Pakistani newspapers.[24] On 22 June 2004, it was announced that the couple had divorced, ending the nine-year marriage because it was difficult for Jemima to adapt to life in Pakistan.[25][26] Khan now resides alone in Bani Gala farmhouse.[27] In November 2009, Khan underwent emergency surgery at Lahores Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital to remove an obstruction in his small intestine.[28] Cricket career Welfare activities Politics Imran Khan, Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf addressing Tribal leaders in a meeting in Islamabad. Imran Khan, Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf addressing Tribal leaders of Waziristan in a meeting held in Islamabad. PTI holds an anti War on Terror policy and is the biggest political opposition to Drone attacks in Pakistan. Initial politics (1996–2013) In 1996, Khan founded a political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).[15][55][56] Khan supported General Pervez Musharrafs military coup in 1999,[57] believing Musharraf would end corruption, clear out the political mafias.[58] According to Khan, he was Musharrafs choice for prime minister in 2002 but turned down the offer.[59] The 2002 Pakistani general election in October across 272 constituencies, Khan anticipated in the elections and was prepared to form a coalition if his party did not get a majority of the vote.[60] He was elected from Mianwali.[61] He has also served as a part of the Standing Committees on Kashmir and Public Accounts.[62] On 6 May 2005, Khan was mentioned in The New Yorker as being the most directly responsible for drawing attention in the Muslim word to the Newsweek story about the alleged desecration of the Quran in a U.S. military prison at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.[63] In June 2007, Khan faced political opponents in and outside the parliament.[64] On 2 October 2007, as part of the All Parties Democratic Movement, Khan joined 85 other MPs to resign from Parliament in protest of the presidential election scheduled for 6 October, which general Musharraf was contesting without resigning as army chief.[9] On 3 November 2007, Khan was put under house arrest, after president Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan. Later Khan escaped and went into hiding.[65] He eventually came out of hiding on 14 November to join a student protest at the University of the Punjab.[66] At the rally, Khan was captured by students and was mistreated.[67] On 30 October 2011, Khan addressed more than 100,000 supporters in Lahore, challenging the policies of the government, calling that new change a tsunami against the ruling parties,[68] Another successful public gathering of 250,000 supporters was held in Karachi on 25 December 2011.[69] Since then Khan has become a real threat to the ruling parties and a future political prospect in Pakistan. According to the International Republican Institutes (IRIs) survey, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) tops the list of popular parties in Pakistan both at the national and provincial level.[70][71] On 6 October 2012, Khan joined a vehicle caravan of protesters from Islamabad to the village of Kotai in Pakistans South Waziristan region against U.S. drone missile strikes.[72][73] On 23 March 2013, Khan introduced the Naya Pakistan Resolution (New Pakistan) at the start of his election campaign.[74][75][76][77] On 29 April The Observer termed Khan and his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf as the main opposition to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.[78] On 30 April 2013, Manzoor Wattoo president of Pakistan Peoples Party (Punjab) offered Khan the office of prime minister in the possible coalition government which would include the PPP and Khans PTI, in a move to prevent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz to make the government, but the offer was rejected.[79] During the 1990s, Khan also served as UNICEFs Special Representative for Sports[80] and promoted health and immunisation programmes in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.[81] While in London, he also works with the Lords Taverners, a cricket charity.[7] On January 2014, YouGov ranked Khan as a famous person in and out of Pakistan.[82] Between 2011 and 2013, Khan and Nawaz Sharif began to engage each other in a bitter feud. The rivalry between the two leaders grew in late 2011 when Khan addressed his largest crowd at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore.[83] From 26 April 2013, in the run up to the elections, both the PML-N and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf started to criticize each other.[84][85][86] 2013 elections campaign See also: Pervez Khattak administration and Pakistani general election, 2013 Imran Khan addressing a crowd at Hyderabad. On 21 April 2013 Khan launched his final public relations campaign for the 2013 elections from Lahore where he addressed thousands of supporters at The Mall, Lahore.[87] [88][89] He announced that he would pull Pakistan out of the U.S.-led war on terror and bring peace to the Pashtun tribal belt.[89] Khan addressed different public meetings in Malakand, Lower Dir District, Upper Dir District and other cities of Pakistan where he announced that PTI will introduce a uniform education system in which the children of rich and poor will have equal opportunities.[90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97] Khan ended his south Punjab campaign by addressing rallies at Bahawalpur, Khanpur, Sadiqabad, Rahim Yar Khan and Rajanpur.[98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106] Khan ended the campaign by addressing a rally of supporters in Islamabad via a video link while lying on a bed at a hospital in Lahore.[107] According to the last survey before the elections by The Herald showed 24.98 percent of voters nationally planned to vote for his party, just a whisker behind former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).[108][108] On 7 May, just four days before the elections, Khan was rushed to Shaukat Khanum hospital in Lahore after he tumbled from a forklift at the edge of a stage and fell headfirst to the ground. He survived.[109][110] Pakistans 2013 elections were held on 11 May 2013 throughout the country. The elections resulted in a clear majority of Pakistan Muslim League (N).[111][112] Khans PTI also emerged as the second largest party in Karachi[113][114] Khans party PTI won 30 directly elected parliamentary seats.[115] In Opposition See also: Azadi March and Pervez Khattak administration Imran Khan with Secretary of State John Kerry. Khan led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf became the opposition party in Punjab and Sindh. Khan became the parliamentary leader of his party.[116][117] On 31 July 2013 Khan was issued a contempt of court notice for allegedly criticizing the superior judiciary,[118] and his use of the word shameful for the judiciary. The notice was discharged after Khan submitted before the Supreme Court that he criticized the lower judiciary for their actions during the May 2013 General election while those judicial officers were working as returning officers.[119]Khans party swooped the militancy-hit northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and has formed the provincial government.[120][121][122] PTI-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government presented a balanced, tax-free budget for the fiscal year 2013–14.[123] On 13 November 2013, Imran Khan being party leader, ordered Pervez Khattak to dismiss ministers of Qaumi Watan Party who were allegedly involved in corruption. Bakht Baidar and Ibrar Hussan Kamoli of Qaumi Watan Party were ministers for Manpower & Industry and Forest & Environment respectively, were dismissed.[124] Khan ordered Chief Minister KPK to end the alliance with Qaumi Watan Party. Chief Minister KPK also dismissed Minister for Communication and Works of PTI Yousuf Ayub due to a fake degree.[125] One year after elections, on 11 May 2014, Khan alleged that 2013 general elections were rigged in favor of the ruling Pakistan Muslim Leaque.[126] On 14 August 2014, Imran Khan led a rally of supporters from Lahore to Islamabad, promising Nawaz Sharifs resignation and investigation into alleged electoral fraud.[127] On its way to the capital Khans convoy was attacked by stones Muslim League supporters in Gujranwala, however there were no fatalities.[128] Khan was reported to be attacked with guns which forced him to travel him in bullet-proof vehicle.[129] On August 15 Khan led protesters entered the capital and a few days later marched into the high security Red Zone, on 1st Sep 2014, according to Al Jazeera, attempted to storm Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s official residence, which prompted the outbreak of violence which has resulted in three deaths and more than 595 people injured, including 115 police officers.[130] By September Khan had entered into a de facto alliance with Canadian-Pakistani cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, both have aimed to mobilize their supporters for regime change.[131][132]
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 01:38:58 +0000
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