Khan’s supporters protests ex-PM’s arrest across Pakistan

World
By William

DEVELOPING STORY,

Thousands took to the streets in the capital Islamabad, the port city of Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and other cities.

Police have fired water cannons and tear gas to quell protests that erupted in several cities in Pakistan hours after former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested in connection with a corruption case.

Thousands of Khan’s supporters took to the streets in the capital Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and other cities on Tuesday to protest his arrest.

In Islamabad, hundreds of Khan’s Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) activists blocked Kashmir’s main road, halting traffic on both sides of the road.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said from Islamabad that “a precarious situation” is emerging following Khan’s arrest.

“As reports of Imran Khan’s arrest spread across the country, protesters demonstrated [took] into the streets and arrests are being made,” Hyder said. “There is a lot of anger among Imran Khan’s supporters and the situation is escalating by the hour.”

Hyder added that officials anticipated the protests and have warned the public not to participate in them.

“The Inspector General of Islamabad Police has said that anyone who comes out to protest should be arrested,” he said.

Local broadcaster Geo News reported that police have arrested more than a dozen PTI workers after the two sides clashed at various points in the city.

In Lahore, the country’s second-largest city, protesters gathered outside the former prime minister’s Zaman Park residence and blocked adjacent roads by setting tires on fire. The police used water cannon to disperse the demonstrators.

In the southern port city of Karachi, PTI supporters gathered outside the local party office along the city’s busiest Shahrah-e-Faisal Road. Both tracks of the road near the PTI office were closed to traffic as heavy police cordoned off the area.

Police also threw tear gas grenades to disperse the protesters as they tried to block the road.

A group of protesters pelted stones and burned tires on Burns Road, the city’s famous food street, halting traffic and forcing shopkeepers to pull down their shutters.

In the northwestern town of Landi Kotal, which borders neighboring Afghanistan, protesters blocked the Pak-Afghan highway at two points, Dawn News reported.

Khan’s arrest followed months of political crisis and came hours after the country’s powerful military reprimanded the former international cricketer for alleging a senior officer was involved in a plot to assassinate him.

“Imran Khan has been arrested in Qadir Trust case,” said the official Twitter account of Islamabad Police, referring to a corruption case.

Video broadcast on local TV channels showed Khan – who has been limping since he was shot in an assassination attempt last year – being maneuvered into an armored car by dozens of paramilitary rangers inside Islamabad’s Supreme Court building.

It was not immediately clear where he was being taken.

Ahead of his arrest, party officials later released a pre-recorded video of Khan urging supporters to speak out for “true freedom”.

“My Pakistanis, by the time these words reach you, I would have been detained on an illegal cause,” he says in the video.

“One thing should become clear to all of you from this: the fundamental rights in Pakistan, the rights given to us by our constitution and democracy, have been buried.”

Pakistan is deeply mired in an economic and political crisis, with Khan pushing the struggling coalition government for early elections.

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