Senior journalist Najam Sethi has said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan’s sister Aleema Khan will soon be going to jail, dismissing the idea that her activism can shift the party’s fortunes.

“Aleema Khan will go to jail first,” Sethi said during his show on a private media outlet when asked whether she could build pressure on the state or make the party’s workers and lawmakers take to the streets in large numbers.

Aleema has been leading rallies as PTI approaches three years since founder Imran Khan’s imprisonment.

When asked if the crowds she is pulling could sustain a long march, he said, “They won’t come out for a long march.”

Sethi pointed to a case against Aleema Khan tied to the November 26 protests, saying a verdict is expected around August 11. “It seems she will be sentenced and arrested,” he said.

The case, registered at Sadiqabad police station in Rawalpindi, stems from the party’s violent protests on November 26, 2024, when more than 10,000 supporters entered Islamabad in defiance of a public gathering ban and clashed with security forces near D-Chowk.

A Rawalpindi anti-terrorism court (ATC) has since issued multiple non-bailable arrest warrants against Aleema over repeated non-appearance.

On the party’s internal state of affairs and reported cracks among its ranks, Sethi said the rift began the day Imran Khan was jailed. “Who is the real leader? Who will run the movement?” he quoted the party’s leadership as questioning.

Sethi went on to name party leaders who tried and failed to mobilise the masses for Imran’s release, naming former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur who “tried, then ran away”, and former first lady Bushra Bibi “whose attempt also brought no success”.

While Bushra also now remains locked up with her husband in Adiala, Sethi described a split between “an unofficial leadership run by the sister and an official leadership that can’t run anything”, naming incumbent party chief Barrister Gohar, Salman Akram Raja and Mehmood Achakzai as figures unwilling to align with Aleema’s approach.

He also said that the state’s position toward the PTI had not changed. “There is zero flexibility in the policies adopted toward PTI,” he said, adding that any real change in Pakistan tends to arrive without warning.

“If any change comes to this country, it won’t be brought by PTI. It will be something spontaneous that neither you nor I or the PTI can predict,” Sethi said, citing the fall of Ayub Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as examples with no organised movement behind them.

On whether Aleema’s politics serve herself or her brother, he said the two were not separate to him. “She isn’t doing it for herself, but she knows that if she does it for Imran and succeeds, then it’s her success too.”