Khan: I fear death from poison in jail

IMRAN Khan said he fears assassination by poison injection, as more than 1,000 of his followers were rounded up in mass arrests after his own detention.

Troops were deployed in the capital city, Islamabad, and the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces as Mr Khan’s supporters continued to attack state buildings in protest at his arrest.

The seizure of the cricket star turned politician has marked a sharp escalation in his year-long confrontation with the government and military and sparked deadly clashes.

Rishi Sunak said the UK was “monitoring the situation carefully”.

Mr Khan, 70, was yesterday remanded in custody for another eight days in an anticorruption case which, he says, is politically motivated. He told the court he feared dying – as did a key witness during a money-laundering case against the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, last year.

The key witness died of a heart attack. Mr Khan asked to see his personal doctor, and said: “I am afraid I will meet the same fate as Maqsood Chaprasi. They give an injection, and [you] slowly die,” he said.

As riots continued, three people were shot dead in Peshawar. Police in Punjab province said they had arrested 1,050 people, and hundreds more were reported held in Karachi.

Mr Khan has waged war on the government and the country’s military leaders since he was ousted from power in a no confidence vote in April 2022.

His accusations that he

‘I am afraid I will meet the same fate … an injection, and you slowly die’

was kicked out by a Usbacked conspiracy have found widespread sympathy. Washington has strongly denied any involvement.

As Mr Khan has grown increasingly outspoken, he has been hit with a flurry of court cases. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Zahid Hussain, a political and security analyst, said: “The situation seems to be getting out of control.

“When the army is called out, it is like a soft coup is creeping.”