B S Dara
bsdara@gmail.com
Pakistan is once again standing at a familiar crossroads,one it has visited too many times in its short but turbulent history. The man at the centre of the storm is Imran Khan, the former prime minister, national sports hero, and now the country’s most popular political prisoner. Jailed for over two years on multiple charges ranging from corruption to inciting public disorder, Khan remains the single most potent political force in Pakistan today,even from behind bars.
His incarceration has not calmed the streets. If anything, it has deepened Pakistan’s political fever. His supporters view him as a victim of a predatory state. His opponents see him as reckless and destabilising. And the military,Pakistan’s most enduring centre of power,sees him as a problem that refuses to fade away.
This situation feels uncomfortably familiar. In Pakistan, political disputes have often ended not through ballots and courts, but through blood, and erased truths.
Pakistan’s history of political assassinations and unexplained removals begins almost immediately after its creation.
In 1951, Liaquat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first prime minister, was assassinated in Rawalpindi while addressing a public gathering. The assassin was killed on the spot. Soon after, the officer leading the investigation died in a mysterious plane crash. Crucially, key documents related to the probe were reportedly lost in the crash. To this day, no credible explanation has emerged.
That pattern,of violence followed by institutional amnesia,would become a defining feature of Pakistan’s political story.
Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy followed Liaquat Ali Khan as prime minister. He was a constitutionalist, vocal about preserving the spirit of Pakistan’s original parliamentary framework. His politics brought him into open conflict with Field Marshal Ayub Khan, the country’s first military ruler.Suhrawardy was arrested and later allowed to leave Pakistan ostensibly for medical treatment. In 1963, he died suddenly in Beirut under circumstances that were never properly investigated. Once again, Pakistan lost a civilian leader who challenged military dominance ,and once again, the truth was buried.
Perhaps the most consequential political suppression in Pakistan’s history was that of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.In the 1970 general elections,Pakistan’s first free national poll ,Mujib’s Awami League won an outright majority. Constitutionally, he should have become prime minister. Instead, he was arrested and placed in a cell in Mianwali, transported secretly to West Pakistan.
The refusal to transfer power triggered a chain of events that led to civil war, Indian military intervention, and the birth of Bangladesh. In 1975, Mujibur Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family.
Pakistan lost half its country, and yet failed to learn its lesson.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the civilian leader who emerged after 1971, attempted to impose political control over the military. He introduced social reforms and gave Pakistan a new constitution. But he, too, ultimately fell victim to the same system.nIn 1979, Bhutto was executed after a deeply controversial trial under General Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime. The judiciary handed down a death sentence widely regarded by legal experts as politically influenced. Even today, Pakistan’s Supreme Court acknowledges serious flaws in the verdict.Bhutto’s execution institutionalised a dangerous precedent that courts could be used as instruments for eliminating political threats.
The pattern continued with Nawaz Sharif, the longest-serving civilian prime minister in Pakistan’s history. He was ousted not once, but three times, most notably in a 1999 military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf.Sharif was jailed, exiled, brought back, elected again, and then removed once more through judicial proceedings widely believed to have establishment backing. His crime, according to many observers, was attempting to assert civilian authority over the military.
Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in 2007 marked yet another dark chapter. Pakistan’s first woman prime minister was killed in Rawalpindi during an election campaign.Despite numerous investigations, including one by the United Nations, no definitive accountability has emerged. Evidence disappeared. Security failures were explained away. Responsibility was shifted endlessly,but never fixed.
It became impossible to avoid the conclusion that some truths in Pakistan are simply not allowed to surface.
Now with Imran Khan in jail, is Pakistan’shistory repeating Itself?
Placed against this backdrop, Imran Khan’s imprisonment does not look like an isolated episode. It looks like continuity.Khan was removed through a parliamentary vote of no confidence, but his downfall did not end there. What followed was unprecedented.Dozens of cases, prolonged incarceration, limited access to lawyers, family members prevented from meeting him, and peaceful protesters dispersed harshly outside Adiala Jail.
Despite this, Khan has not retreated. From his cell, he continues to issue political statements, challenge the legitimacy of the state apparatus, and call out the military’s role in governance. His defiance,principled or provocative, depending on the observer,has kept Pakistan on the boil.Public sentiment, particularly among the youth, is visibly tilted in his favour. Large sections of society now openly criticise the military, a rare and dangerous shift in Pakistan.
Given this history, a grim question naturally arises.What if Imran Khan is assassinated?
Pakistan has crossed this line before. Often.An assassination would almost certainly ignite nationwide unrest on a scale Pakistan has not seen in decades. The military’s already strained relationship with the public would fracture further. Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa could become ungovernable. The economy,already brittle, would collapse under renewed sanctions, capital flight, and internal chaos.
Externally, the West and the United States might issue condemnations and calls for restraint. But history suggests their intervention would stop there. Strategic interests have always outweighed democratic ideals where Pakistan is concerned.
There is, however, another possibility.Imran Khan may survive. He may emerge weakened, negotiate terms, even return to the political mainstream. Pakistan’s history also shows that exile, compromise, and delayed rehabilitation are sometimes preferred to martyrdom.Yet Khan’s refusal to bend complicates this outcome. His rhetoric grows sharper. His challenge to the military’s moral authority grows louder. Whether he becomes another Zulfikar Bhutto, another Mujibur Rahman, defies history altogether, remains uncertain.
Pakistan today is confronting a political crisis. It is confronting its own unresolved past.For over seven decades, the country has repeatedly silenced civilian dissent through force, courts, exile, or death. Each time, it has paid a heavy price,territorially, economically, and morally.
Imran Khan is not the beginning of this story. He is its latest chapter.Whether Pakistan writes a different ending this time will determine Khan’s fate, and the survival of the Pakistani state as a coherent political entity.
History is watching. This time, it may not look away.
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