Pakistan's most successful cricket captain, leading his country to victory at the 1992 Cricket World Cup

Imran Khan  on 25 November 1952) is a Pakistani politician and former cricketer. He played international cricket for two decades in the late twentieth century and, after retiring, entered politics. Besides his political activism, Khan is also a philanthropist, cricket commentator, chancellor of the University of Bradford and founding chairman of the Board of Governors of Shaukat Khanum Hospital. He also founded Namal College, Mianwali in 2008.

He was Pakistan's most successful cricket captain, leading his country to victory at the 1992 Cricket World Cup, playing for the Pakistani cricket team from 1971 to 1992, and serving as its captain intermittently throughout 1982–1992. After retiring from cricket at the end of the 1987 World Cup in 1988, owing to popular demand he was requested to come back by the president of Pakistan Zia ul Haq to lead the team once again. At the age of 39, Khan led his team to Pakistan's first and only One Day World Cup victory in 1992. With 3807 runs and 362 wickets in Test cricket, he is one of eight world cricketers to have achieved an 'All-rounder's Triple' in Test matches. On 14 July 2010, Khan was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.

In April 1996, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf ("Movement for Justice") political party was established and Khan became its chairman. He represented Mianwali as a member of the National Assembly from November 2002 to October 2007, he was again elected on 11 May 2013, while his party gained 35 seats in the National Assembly. Global Post mentioned him third in a list of nine world leaders of 2012 and recognized Khan as the face of the anti-drone movement in Pakistan.According to Asia Society, Khan was voted as Asia’s Person of the Year 2012. As the Pew Research Center, in 2012 a majority of Pakistani respondents offered a favorable opinion of Khan. The survey also revealed Khan's fame among youth.

Welfare activities

During the 1990s, Khan also served as UNICEF's Special Representative for Sports and promoted health and immunisation programmes in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand. While in London, he also works with the Lord's Taverners, a cricket charity.

Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust

Main article: Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital & Research Centre

Namal College was founded by Khan in Mianwali.

Khan focused his efforts solely on social work. By 1991, he had founded the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust, a charity organisation bearing the name of his mother, Mrs. Shaukat Khanum. As the Trust's maiden endeavour, Khan established Pakistan's first and only cancer hospital, constructed using donations and funds exceeding $25 million, raised by Khan from all over the world.

Namal Knowledge City

Main article: Namal College

On 27 April 2008, Khan established a technical college in the Mianwali District called Namal College. It was built by the Mianwali Development Trust (MDT), and is an associate college of the University of Bradford in December 2005.

Imran Khan Foundation

Imran Khan Foundation is another welfare work, which aims to assist needy people all over Pakistan. It has provided help to flood victims in Pakistan. Buksh Foundation has partnered with the Imran Khan Foundation to light up villages in Dera Ghazi Khan, Mianwali and Dera Ismail Khan under the project 'Lighting a Million Lives'. The campaign will establish several Solar Charging Stations in the selected off-grid villages and will provide villagers with solar lanterns, which can be regularly charged at the solar-charging stations.

Politics

Initial politics (1996–2013)

Imran Khan, Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf addressing Tribal leaders in a meeting in Islamabad.

In 1996, Khan founded a political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Khan supported General Pervez Musharraf's military coup in 1999, believing Musharraf would "end corruption, clear out the political mafias". According to Khan, he was Musharraf's choice for prime minister in 2002 but turned down the offer. The 2002 Pakistani general election in October across 272 constituencies, Khan anticipated in the elections and was prepared to form a coalition if his party did not get a majority of the vote. He was elected from Mianwali. He has also served as a part of the Standing Committees on Kashmir and Public Accounts.

On 6 May 2005, Khan was mentioned in The New Yorker as being the "most directly responsible" for drawing attention in the Muslim word to the Newsweek story about the alleged desecration of the Qur'an in a U.S. military prison at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. In June 2007, Khan faced political opponents in and outside the parliament.

On 2 October 2007, as part of the All Parties Democratic Movement, Khan joined 85 other MPs to resign from Parliament in protest of the presidential election scheduled for 6 October, which general Musharraf was contesting without resigning as army chief. On 3 November 2007, Khan was put under house arrest, after president Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan. Later Khan escaped and went into hiding. He eventually came out of hiding on 14 November to join a student protest at the University of the Punjab. At the rally, Khan was captured by students and was mistreated.

On 30 October 2011, Khan addressed more than 100,000 supporters in Lahore, challenging the policies of the government, calling that new change a "tsunami" against the ruling parties,Another successful public gathering of 250,000 supporters was held in Karachi on 25 December 2011. Since then Khan has become a real threat to the ruling parties and a future political prospect in Pakistan. According to the International Republican Institute's (IRI's) survey, Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) tops the list of popular parties in Pakistan both at the national and provincial level.

On 6 October 2012, Khan joined a vehicle caravan of protesters from Islamabad to the village of Kotai in Pakistan's South Waziristan region against U.S. drone missile strikes.

Imran Khan at the World Economic Forum

On 23 March 2013, Khan introduced the "Naya Pakistan Resolution" (New Pakistan) at the start of his election campaign. On 29 April The Observer termed Khan and his party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf as the main opposition to the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. On 30 April 2013, Manzoor Wattoo president of Pakistan Peoples Party (Punjab) offered Khan the office of prime minister in the possible coalition government which would include the PPP and Khan's PTI, in a move to prevent Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz to make the government, but the offer was rejected.

On January 2014, YouGov ranked Khan as a famous person in and out of Pakistan. Between 2011 and 2013, Khan and Nawaz Sharif began to engage each other in a bitter feud. The rivalry between the two leaders grew in late 2011 when Khan addressed his largest crowd at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore. From 26 April 2013, in the run up to the elections, both the PML-N and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf started to criticize each other.

2013 elections campaign

See also: Pervez Khattak administration and Pakistani general election, 2013

Imran Khan addressing a crowd at Hyderabad.

On 21 April 2013 Khan launched his final public relations campaign for the 2013 elections from Lahore where he addressed thousands of supporters at The Mall, Lahore. He announced that he would pull Pakistan out of the U.S.-led war on terror and bring peace to the Pashtun tribal belt. Khan addressed different public meetings in Malakand, Lower Dir District, Upper Dir District and other cities of Pakistan where he announced that PTI will introduce a uniform education system in which the children of rich and poor will have equal opportunities. Khan ended his south Punjab campaign by addressing rallies at Bahawalpur, Khanpur, Sadiqabad, Rahim Yar Khan and Rajanpur. Khan ended the campaign by addressing a rally of supporters in Islamabad via a video link while lying on a bed at a hospital in Lahore.[111] According to the last survey before the elections by The Herald showed 24.98 percent of voters nationally planned to vote for his party, just a whisker behind former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N).

On 7 May, just four days before the elections, Khan was rushed to Shaukat Khanum hospital in Lahore after he tumbled from a forklift at the edge of a stage and fell headfirst to the ground. He survived. Pakistan's 2013 elections were held on 11 May 2013 throughout the country. The elections resulted in a clear majority of Pakistan Muslim League (N).Khan's PTI also emerged as the second largest party in Karachi Khan's party PTI won 30 directly elected parliamentary seats.