Former India captains Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev and Dilip Vengsarkar are among 21 former international cricket captains who have written to Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, asking for proper medical treatment and welfare of jailed former Pakistan Prime Minister and World Cup-winning captain Imran Khan.The letter was initiated by former Australia captain Greg Chappell. It is the second appeal by former international captains seeking humane treatment and medical care for the 73-year-old Khan.The captains said they were “not seek to adjudicate Pakistan’s domestic legal processes but believed that ensuring a court-ordered medical process was completed was a basic matter of decency”.
The three requests in the letter
The former captains made three specific requests to the Pakistan government:1. Allow an independent medical assessmentThey asked that the medical board ordered by Pakistan’s Supreme Court, including Imran Khan’s personal doctors, be allowed to complete a full and independent assessment of his health, especially the reported loss of vision in his right eye.2. Restore uninterrupted family visitsThe captains urged the government to honour the Supreme Court’s order allowing Khan’s family to meet him every week without interruption or administrative delays.3. Provide treatment without delayThey requested that any medical treatment recommended after the assessment be provided without delay.Khan has been in jail since 2023. Late last year, he and his wife were sentenced to 17 years in prison on corruption charges, which they both deny.On Friday, Khan was taken back to jail just hours after being moved to Islamabad’s private Shifa International Hospital for medical checks ordered by the Supreme Court. His lawyers had approached the court over concerns about his health.Besides the three former Indian captains, the letter has been signed by Michael Atherton, Michael Brearley, Nasser Hussain, Andrew Strauss and David Gower from England; Allan Border, Ian Chappell, Belinda Clark, Adam Gilchrist, Steve Waugh and Kim Hughes from Australia; Clive Lloyd from the West Indies; John Wright from New Zealand; Alastair Cook and Arjuna Ranatunga among others.Khan served as Pakistan’s Prime Minister from 2018 to 2022 before being removed through a no-confidence vote during a political crisis involving his government and Pakistan’s military establishment.Since then, he has faced multiple legal cases on corruption and other charges. Khan and his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), have maintained that the cases against him are politically motivated.His arrest in May 2023 triggered protests across Pakistan, some of which turned violent and led to hundreds of arrests.
