Imran Khan: Hero, prisoner, symbol of Pakistan's blind faith in army
India Today
Pakistan's greatest cricketer has become its most tragic political prisoner. His journey from the glory of Melbourne 1992 to a cell in Adiala Jail is a metaphor for Pakistan's decadence.
Imran Khan started life as a playboy, inspired a generation of fanboys, and turned into a jailboy. The arc of his life, from Lahore's Zaman Park to the cricket pitches of Oxford, to the World Cup podium in Melbourne, to the prime minister's chamber, to Adiala Jail, is one of the most extraordinary and most tragic in modern Pakistani history.
Within a span of a few decades, Pakistan produced a global hero, and then swallowed it. Ironically, Imran and his country share the same cage – locked by the army – and identical penchant for self-destruction.
In the winter of 2026, Barrister Salman Safdar, appointed as amicus curiae by Pakistan's Supreme Court, walked into Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi and emerged with a seven-page report that shocked Pakistan. The lawyer reported Imran, 73, was going blind.
The former cricket captain, philanthropist, and prime minister, went from perfect vision in both eyes to just 15% sight remaining in his right eye. The cause, according to his doctors, was a blood clot in the retina, left untreated for months as he repeatedly complained to prison authorities, who took no action.
This is a tragic denouement for Imran, an outcome nobody could have predicted for the handsome young man with a booming baritone and a lionesque mane.
Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi was born in 1952 in Lahore. A Pashtun from the Niazi tribe, he was closely related to AAK 'Tiger' Niazi, the Pakistani General who surrendered in Dhaka to Indian forces in 1971.
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