Pakistan prime minister’s wife defends him in rare interview
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s reclusive first lady Bushra Imran gave her first interview to the media this week, clad in all-encompassing white burqa with only her eyes visible, and talked extensively about her husband Imran Khan’s life.
Bushra, Khan’s third wife and a faith healer from Pakpattan in Punjab province who is also known as Pinki
Pir, described her husband as a leader and not a politician, and a selfless man “who did not want anything for himself”.
During the wide-ranging interview on HUMTV, a news channel, she said: “I have never seen a simpler person. He (Khan) is free of any wants or desires.”
She added, “When God wants to change the fate of a nation, He gives them a leader instead of a politician.” Khan has the country’s best interests at heart, she added.
Asked about how she felt about her transition from a spiritual guide or ‘pir’ to first lady, Bushra replied, “In my past life, people used to come to me to get close to God and his messenger, now they come to me to get close to Khan sab.”
The first lady further said: “It is important to worship and pray but it is more important to serve humankind... This is something I’ve learned from Khan sab.”
She credited Khan with helping her gain a greater appreciation for life: “People say that I have changed him, when the truth is that we have changed each other.
“I taught him that worship brings you closer to God, and he taught me that loving His creations brings us closer to Him.”
Speaking of Khan’s simple lifestyle, Bushra said he is not particular about clothes or food. “He wants nothing,” she said.
“He does not get any clothes stitched for himself. When I first married him, I asked one of the housekeepers to take out his summer clothes and was told that he does not have any,” she said, narrating an incident from the early days of her marriage. “The housekeeper told me that he only wears clothes if someone gives them to him. He never gets them stitched.”
Bushra recalled that someone gifted Khan “a few sets of shalwar kameez, which he wore throughout the season”.
She described her husband as a “leader” and “not a politician”. She said: “(Muhammad Ali Jinnah) was a leader.
Khan sab is a leader, and (in the current era) only (Turkish President Recep Teyyip) Erdogan is a leader. The rest of these people are just politicians.”
Speaking of a shift Khan’s temperament after the elections, the interviewer remarked that the firebrand leader seemed to have mellowed in the past few months. To this, Bushra said the shift can be attributed to his increased religiosity.