Senior PTI leader and former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was hospitalised at the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute in Lahore for gallbladder stone complications, his daughter stated on Friday.
Shah Mahmood has been indicted in multiple cases pertaining to the May 9, 2023 riots and has remained behind bars since August 2023. In July 2024, the PTI leader was indicted by a Lahore anti-terrorism court in a case registered by the Shadman police over allegedly attacking and burning the police station.
Meher Bano Qureshi took to X today to announce that the PTI leader was undergoing baseline tests for the stones, which he had “lived with … for years”.
“In 2023, while incarcerated in Adiala Jail, doctors had advised surgery after his condition deteriorated. He chose not to undergo any procedures, then unwilling to do so while in solitary confinement,” she wrote.
“Since then, the stones have increased in size and surgery is now unavoidable. We await the doctors’ final report and a confirmed date for the operation,” Meher Bano added.
She added that Shah Mahmood also had a “cardiac emergency” while imprisoned at Kot Lakhpat Jail near Lahore earlier this year.
“What remains deeply painful is knowing that he is not alone in this suffering,” Meher Bano wrote. “Every single PTI leader and worker who has endured imprisonment over the past year has faced serious health consequences under inhumane and unjust conditions.
“Many continue to battle the effects of prolonged confinement, neglect and isolation … some of our workers have also lost their lives whilst unjustly imprisoned,” she added.
Former PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry also took to X and wrote that Shah Mahmood has been in the hospital for several days and was visited by family members and constituents.
“If the PTI leadership can’t even go to inquire about him, then saying that we shouldn’t even visit him is strange logic,” Chaudhry wrote. “We have not only met Shah Mahmood Qureshi but also met workers and leadership in Kot Lakhpat Jail.”
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