Pakistan's former president and PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari was on Friday admitted to a private hospital here after feeling unwell, a senior party leader said.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Munawar Anjum told PTI that Zardari, who arrived here from Islamabad on Friday, was rushed to the hospital on the on the advice of his doctors.
“Doctors have taken his blood tests and started treatment," he said. The Express Tribune newspaper, quoting sources, reported that Zardari fell ill due to the exertion and exhaustion from travelling for court appearances and the budget session.
PPP co-chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari cancelled his Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) visit where the election campaign is underway and reached Karachi to look after his father, Anjum said.
Zardari's elder sister Bhaktawa also arrived in Karachi to be with her ailing father along with her other sister Aseefa, he said.
Anjum said that Zardari had been attending Parliament sessions in Islamabad since Monday. After he met with party leaders, he had exertion.
In October last year, the 65-year-old former president and husband of the country's first woman prime minister Benazir Bhutto was admitted to a private hospital due to low sugar level.
Bilawal, during his recent address in Parliament, said that Zardari had attended a budget session despite being unwell.
Zardari, who was the 11th President of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013, recently arrived here from Lahore and Islamabad. In Lahore, he had attended a meeting with former Punjab chief minister Pervaiz Elahi, the report said.
The veteran PPP leader, who is facing multiple corruption cases, was released from jail in December 2019 after the Islamabad High Court approved his bail on medical grounds. He had been suffering from ischemic heart disease, which means his heart may have an inadequate supply of blood and oxygen.
An accountability court in Islamabad last year indicted Zardari, his sister Faryal Talpur and other accused in the mega-money laundering pertaining to the fake accounts case.
Zardari is facing multiple corruption cases that have stemmed from a mega money laundering scandal, which came into the limelight in 2018.
He, Faryal and several of their business associates are being probed as part of a 2015 case over fake accounts and fictitious transactions, which were initially found to have totalled Rs 35 billion, conducted through 29 ‘benami’ accounts.