Amid repeated reports of rifts within the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Aleema Khan, the sister of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan, has broken silence on the division over the Mines and Minerals (Amendment) Act, urging that all critical decisions regarding Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) should be put on hold till her brother was released.

 

Political parties in KP, including the ruling PTI, have expressed their concerns over and protested to the Mines and Minerals (Amendment) Act, which they say against the interests of the people of KP.

 

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Aleema requested party members to show solidarity with Khan, stressing that her brother’s imprisonment should not be normalised.

 

Maintaining that her brother had been “illegally” imprisoned for nearly two years now, Aleema said, “He [Khan] has been deprived of his two fundamental (and legal) demands: his books and weekly phone calls with his sons.”

 

She further claimed that Khan’s access to his party members had been blocked for the past 5 months. “The lists for lawyers, party members and family are submitted to jail authorities as per orders of the chief justice of [the] Islamabad High Court and his three-member bench. The jail authorities seem to be under no obligation to comply with court orders.”

 

Aleema also said that anyone who was not on the list Khan had approved should not go visit him at Adiala Jail.

 

The post came days after a heated war of words reportedly took place between KP Chief Minister (CM) Ali Amin Gandapur and PTI Peshawar Region President Atif Khan in the PTI parliamentarians’ WhatsApp group over the minerals bill.

 

Media reports claim that the disagreement began when Atif Khan advised PTI Member Provincial Assembly (MPAs) in the group to not vote in favour of the bill, declaring the bill “against the interests of the people of KP.”

 

In response, Gandapur directly addressed Atif, asking, “Have you even read the bill? If you do not understand English, I will send you a copy in the Urdu version.”

 

Earlier, CM Gandapur, in his video statement, also categorically dismissed the claims that the amendments in the bill were meant for surrendering the provincial authority to another entity.

 

“The powers of the province cannot and will not be surrendered,” he said, adding that such claims were false, fabricated and “appeared to be driven by personal vendettas”.

 

The KP CM further said that the proposed amendments were part of his government’s broader reform agenda aimed at enhancing transparency and efficiency in the minerals sector. “Vested interests are misrepresenting these reforms for their own benefit,” he added.