Reham Khan, the former wife of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan, has clarified that she is staying in the UK temporarily and will return to Pakistan after a book she has been working on is published.
Talking to a leading English daily, Reham said that she left Pakistan ‘temporarily’ for various reasons, one of which is the security of her kids, adding that she wants to settle her children there and publish her book.
She clarified that she did not leave the country and will be back when her book, editing and writing of which is complete, gets published.
Talking about the book, the former TV presenter said that it is mainly about her life as a journalist and a mother, but mentioned that the PTI chief features in it because he was once a part of her life, albeit an unpleasant one.
Media reports had earlier claimed that Reham had left the country amid threats by unknown individuals.
The news of her departure came in the wake of a recent interview she gave to a foreign news channel in which she commented on her former husband’s alleged third marriage. “There is no specific threat,” Reham clarified on Tuesday.
She, however, claimed that a cricketer from the national team had been constantly trying to contact her. She claimed that when she finally spoke to the player, he told her to stop saying what she was about Imran.
Reham further alleged that after their divorce, Imran had sent her a message stating, “You should leave for the UK and give the impression that your kids could not be settled in Pakistan.”
Terming it a masked threat, she said that she knows the ability of the PTI members.
Reham said people had been linking her to the PML-N after her recent statements, but a senior leader from the ruling party had called her this week and suggested that she should stop talking about Imran.
She also said that other senior PML-N leaders had also asked her to keep mum about Imran. “They had also asked me to stay quiet on the Ayesha Gulalai harassment issue,” she added.
Responding to her allegation, PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry said that her claims were rubbish. “The threat allegedly issued by Imran was so effective that she lived in Pakistan for two years after the divorce, and only in the elections year she remembered the threat and that too just before the launch of her sponsored book,” he said.
Fawad went on to say that PTI is not MQM and they have no militant groups or the ‘Punjab police’ at their disposal.
