Playboy no more … Imran and his new mystic bride
IN his cricketing days, he had a playboy reputation and went on to marry a British socialite in a blaze of publicity.
Now a prominent politician, it seems Imran Khan prefers a more traditional and understated approach.
The former Pakistani captain, a national hero when he led his team to victory in the 1992 World Cup, married his third wife on Sunday in a low-key private Islamic ceremony at her brother’s home in Lahore.
The bride, whom Imran, 65, has described as his ‘spiritual adviser’, wore a full-length robe and full-face red Islamic veil.
Bushra Wattoo, who is in her 40s, is recently divorced from customs official Ghulam Farid Maneka, with whom she has five children. Also known as Pinki Pir – ‘pir’ means faith healer – she is a devoted follower of Sufi mystic Baba Farid.
It was reported in Pakistan that she will move to Imran’s home in Islamabad but will not be involved in campaigning for July’s general election. Her children will stay with their father.
Oxford graduate Imran’s first wife was British socialite Jemima Goldsmith – daughter of controversial financier Jimmy Goldsmith. They married in 1995 and had two sons.
But her Jewish heritage saw her criticised in Pakistan, particularly by opponents of Imran’s Pakistan Union for Justice (PTI) party. They divorced in 2004. In 2015, Imran married former BBC weather girl Reham Khan. But she was criticised for being ‘too Westernised’ and wearing revealing clothes. The marriage lasted only ten months.
Imran got to know Miss Wattoo during visits to Baba Farid’s shrine near her home in the Punjab. She is said to have been advising him for a year. In January rumours circulated that the pair had married in secret but Imran said that while he had just sent a wedding proposal, Miss Wattoo was discussing the matter with her children.
He was reported as saying: ‘I would like to reiterate that every time I met her, with family and alone, she has been in purdah (veil). My interest in her lies in the fact that I have not seen or met anyone with her level of spirituality. I only sent the proposal for marriage after she divorced her husband.’
He asked supporters to pray for him to find the ‘personal happiness which, except for a few years, I have been deprived of’.