At Least 5 Killed, 100 Injured During Imran Khan's Supporters' March To Parliament (image: screengrab @PTIOfficialUSA)
Islamabad, Pakistan: At least five people, including four police officers and a protestor, have been killed and dozens of people injured in Pakistan when supporters of jailed Imran Khan, the former prime minister, clashed with security forces outside the capital, Islamabad. The country was in security lockdown for the last two days after Khan called for a march on parliament for a sit-in demonstration to demand his release. The march was spearheaded by his wife, Bushra Bibi.
The police officers were shot and killed, and at least 119 others were injured. 22 police vehicles were torched in clashes just outside Islamabad and elsewhere in the Punjab province, said provincial police chief Usman Anwar. Two officers were in critical condition, he added.
Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, said scores of its workers were also hurt. It said their jailed leader’s third wife, Bushra Bibi, and a key aide, Ali Amin Gandapur, the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, were leading a march that arrived almost in Islamabad on Monday night. The government has used shipping containers to block major roads and streets in the capital, with patrols of police and paramilitary personnel in riot gear.
Officials and witnesses said all public transport between cities and terminals had also been shut down in the eastern province to keep away the protesters. Over 80 of Khan’s supporters were arrested, said Provincial Information Minister Uzma Bukhari.
Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told local Geo News TV that the government sought talks with leaders of Khan’s party to calm the situation. “It was a sincere attempt I must say but it didn’t yield any results,” he said. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said security forces showed “extreme restraint” in confronting the protesters, some of whom he said had fired live rounds, while police only used rubber bullets and fired teargas canisters.
He also added that the government had offered Khan’s party permission to hold a sit-in protest at an open field on Islamabad’s outskirts, adding the party’s leaders took this offer to Khan at his prison cell, but, “we haven’t yet heard back on it.“
Naqvi said the protesters would not be allowed to reach outside parliament and warned that the government would be forced to use “extreme” steps if they did not budge, which could include imposing a curfew or calling in army troops. “We will not let them cross our red lines,” he said.
PTI accused the government of using excessive violence to block the protesters and said hundreds of workers and leaders had been arrested.
Footage from the Reuters news agency and local sources showed police firing teargas canisters at Khan’s supporters, who were pelting them with stones and bricks. It showed vehicles and trees ablaze along the main march just outside Islamabad as the protesters at some places pushed shipment containers to make their way.
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Gatherings in Islamabad have been banned, while all schools in the capital and the adjacent city of Rawalpindi were to remain closed on Monday and Tuesday, the authorities said.
Imran Khan called the march a “final call.” It is one of many his party had held to seek his release since he was jailed in August last year. The party’s most recent protest in Islamabad, early in October, turned violent.
Khan faces charges ranging from corruption to investigation of violence. He and his party deny all of the cases. He was voted out of the Parliament after his fallout with the country’s powerful military.
