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Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan and his wife Reham Khan have divorced with mutual consent, PTI spokesperson Naeemul Haque said on Friday.
“PTI chairman Imran Khan and Reham Khan have decided to divorce by mutual consent. Due to the sensivity and seriousness of this extremely painful matter it is requested that the media should refrain from any speculation. There will be no further communication in this respect,” Naeemul Haque said on Facebook.
Reports regarding collapse of their marriage were circulating in the media for a while.
Last month, the PTI chairman rejected a media report suggesting his marriage with Reham Khan was on the rocks.
Imran Khan denies reports of marriage collapse with Reham
“I am shocked at a TV channel making a slanderous statement about my marriage. I strongly urge the media to desist from such baseless statements,” the PTI chief said on microblogging website Twitter.
Imran’s statement came after a local media report alleged the cricketer-turned-politician’s wife was staying at his Bani Gala residence even though she was “not welcome there any longer.”
The report, citing the editor of a local daily newspaper, claimed that Imran had recently returned from London where he had recently stayed with his children and Jemima, his ex-wife.
’Jemima running smear campaign against Reham’
“The relationship with Reham, already on the rocks, has worsened since Khan returned to Pakistan. Differences between the couple may have reached point of no return,” the report stated.
Imran and Reham’s relationship was a topic of controversy from the very start. Soon after the couple married, Reham’s ex-husband, NHS psychiatrist Dr Ijaz Rehman strongly denied allegations he had mistreated her during their marriage.
“I have never been involved in any kind of domestic violence in any shape or form,” said Dr Rehman, with whom she has three children. “I always looked after my children and wife very well.”
Reham used me ‘like toilet paper to clean up her image’: former husband
Further, Dr Rehman claimed she used him “like toilet paper to clean up her image” after she found herself harshly criticised by traditionalists in Pakistan who saw Imran’s bride as far too Westernised.
Further, months after their marriage, it was found that Reham had not attended the Lincolnshire college as she had claimed on her personal website. She said she studied journalism at ‘North Lindsay College’ in Scunthorpe.
Caught in the act: Reham alters university name on official website
However, the college confirmed that it had never taught journalism and had no record of her being a student. She subsequently changed her website to state that she went to the Grimsby Institute.
PTI party members had earlier also expressed concern over Reham’s participation in party politics after which Imran announced she will neither contest elections on a party ticket nor will attend any party gatherings.
In a series of tweets, the PTI chairman had expressed ‘disgust’ over attacks on Reham after the party lost NA-19, Haripur elections to a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) candidate. “She only went to campaign there on insistence of the candidate,” he defended.
“For the record, Reham has only attended PTI functions at the constant insistence of PTI members, especially the women,” he added.
Reham will neither contest elections on PTI ticket nor attend party events: Imran
Reham had officially grabbed the driving seat for PTI in NA-19, Haripur and had been actively campaigning for the party during the by-polls. Earlier, Imranand his wife had denied rumours over the latter’s plans to enter the political arena. However, recent developments contradicted these claims. Reham addressed the political meetings in Hindko, Pashto and Urdu and urged locals to vote for Zaman.
The PTI chief had married television talk show host Reham Khan in a low-key ceremony attended by a handful of friends on January 8. The was conducted at his Bani Gala residence in Islamabad by Mufti Syed in an Islamic ceremony.
Imran weds Reham in low-key affair
The PTI chief had first announced his intention to wed shortly after he began a movement to topple the government last August, which he called off last month in the aftermath of a Taliban attack on a Peshawar school that killed nearly 150 people, mostly children.
In December last year, British tabloid newspaper Daily Mail had reported that the PTI chairperson had ‘secretly’ gotten married. Days after branding the report as “greatly exaggerated,” the PTI chairman before boarding a flight at Heathrow airport in January said, “I am going to Pakistan to share good news about my marriage with the nation. I have nothing to hide.”
Going to share good news about my marriage with nation next week: Imran
The 62-year-old politician, who divorced heiress Jemima Goldsmith in 2004, had wed the 41-year-old divorced mother-of-three against the wishes of his party and family.o
