Bushra Khan, Imran Khan’s wife, marches on Pakistan’s capital

It was billed as a “do or die” protest. On November 26th Bushra Khan, wife of Imran Khan, a jailed former Pakistani prime minister, rode into the capital, Islamabad, on a shipping container, vowing to set her husband free. “I will be the last woman to leave here and I will not leave without [him],” Mrs Khan (pictured) told thousands of cheering supporters. By midnight her triumphant entry had collapsed into chaos. Police and paramilitaries violently cleared the city centre. Mrs Khan decamped to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province in the north. She has not been heard of or seen in public since the protest.

What transpired on the night of the protest is hotly disputed. Mr Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), alleges a “massacre”, claiming at least 12 protesters were killed. The government denies anyone was killed by security forces, blaming instead PTI “trained miscreants” for instigating violence. Four security people died during the protest.

But what is not in dispute is that Mrs Khan’s turn in the harsh spotlight of Pakistani politics has upset the PTI. The party has long railed against dynasties in politics, especially the Sharifs of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (which leads the government) and the Bhuttos of the Pakistan Peoples Party (which is a government ally). “The bigger debacle was not the end of the protest but Bushra’s active entry into PTI politics,” says Kamran Khan, founder of Nukta, a digital-media outlet (and no relation of the Imran Khans).

Opposition to Bushra Khan has been sharp and swift. Party leaders blame her for pushing towards D-Chowk, the political heart of Islamabad, instead of hunkering down outside the capital for negotiations with the government, as the leadership preferred. In the immediate aftermath of Mrs Khan’s first political foray, the PTI’s secretary-general briefly resigned and a key ally quit party committees.

Mrs Khan has largely stayed in the background since her marriage in 2018. A self-styled faith healer, she has been the subject of lurid gossip accusing her of practising witchcraft. But a nine-month stint in jail on corruption charges, which she denies, appears to have pushed her into politics after her release on bail in October from the same prison her husband has been held in since 2023. “In this region... family gets pushed to the front, fights the hardest,” says Maryam Riaz Wattoo, Mrs Khan’s sister.

Amid the PTI finger-pointing, Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister, has pounced. A slew of new charges has been filed against Mr Khan, his wife and party members. Mr Sharif has called the PTI a party of “saboteurs and anarchists”, reviving talk of banning it. A federal anti-riot force is to be set up to deter future PTI protests. (Ms Khan’s march was the fourth big PTI protest this year, the third in two months.) The government puts the cost of standoffs and shutdowns because of such protests at an implausible $680m a day. But it is the government’s own heavy-handed response—which includes closing motorways, switching off mobile networks, and throttling the internet—that drives the economic hit.

The battle is also escalating online. The government has blocked X, formerly Twitter, since February. A national firewall, to ramp up online surveillance and censorship, is being set up with Chinese technology at an estimated one-off cost of $70m-100m. In November the powerful army chief, General Asim Munir, demanded stricter rules for social media, calling “false and misleading information” online a “significant challenge”. General Munir has also tightened his grip on office. Last month parliament increased the tenure of military chiefs from three years to five, abolishing the retirement age of 64. General Munir is now in place until November 2027, when he will be eligible for another five years.

“Both sides are fuming right now, but dialogue is the only way forward,” says Muhammad Ali Saif, who is negotiating on behalf of the PTI with military representatives. Mr Khan has other ideas. On December 4th he called on the PTI to “prepare for the next phase of our struggle for liberation from the mafia”. ■