Frugal ways: Imran, Reham break bread with madrassa students

Ask well-wishers not to send them any gifts, but donate cash to under construction hospital in K-P

ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan lived up to his promise of not holding any extravagant post-wedding banquet on Friday when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief and his new bride Reham Khan chose to break bread with students of a madrassa in their neighbourhood.

The couple made an appearance before the media after having lunch with the seminary children. Imran voiced gratitude to all his well-wishers and friends for their good wishes.

He appealed to his followers not to send him or his wife any wedding gifts. “I think they should contribute instead towards the construction of another Shaukat Khanum Hospital in Peshawar,” he said.



Imran added that the hospital needed cash donations to provide health facilities to the poor in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. “This money will be spent on the welfare of the people in the province,” he said.

During his interaction with journalists, the PTI chief maintained that he had to rush into tying the knot with Reham, a TV anchorperson, due to extensive media speculation within and outside the country about her.

“I made a plan to hold this marriage ceremony next month, but I had to rush things because of the propaganda carried out by certain media outlets against Reham,” he pointed out.

Highlighting the simplicity of his nuptials, the PTI chief said he did not even invite many of his friends, owing to last month’s school tragedy in Peshawar.

To a question, he urged the incumbent government to constitute a judicial commission to probe charges of rigging in the May 2013 election.

Without giving exemplary punishment to the responsible elements, Imran insisted, no election in the future could not be guaranteed free and fair.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2015.