A minimum of one police officer has been killed and dozens of individuals injured in Pakistan as supporters of jailed former rime minister Imran Khan clashed with safety forces exterior the capital Islamabad on Monday, officers and Khan’s social gathering stated.
Authorities have enforced a safety lockdown for the final two days after Khan referred to as for a march on parliament for a sit-in demonstration to demand his launch, whereas highways into town have been barricaded.
One police officer was shot and killed, at the least 119 others had been injured, and 22 police autos had been torched in clashes simply exterior Islamabad and elsewhere within the Punjab province, provincial police chief Usman Anwar stated. Two officers had been in crucial situation, he stated.
Khan’s social gathering stated scores of its employees had been additionally harm.
It stated the jailed chief’s third spouse, Bushra Bibi, and a key aide, Ali Amin Gandapur, who’s the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, had been main a march that arrived virtually inside Islamabad on Monday night time.
The federal government has used transport containers to dam main roads and streets in Islamabad, with patrols of police and paramilitary personnel in riot gear.
Officers and witnesses stated all public transport between cities and terminals had additionally been shut down within the jap province to maintain away the protesters,
Provincial data minister Uzma Bukhari stated about 80 of Khan’s supporters had been arrested.
Defence minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif informed native Geo Information TV that the federal government sought talks with leaders of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) social gathering to calm the state of affairs. “It was a honest try I need to say however it didn’t yield any outcomes,” he stated.
Inside minister Mohsin Naqvi stated safety forces confirmed “excessive restraint” in confronting the protesters, a few of whom he stated had fired stay rounds, whereas police solely used rubber bullets and fired teargas canisters.
“It’s simple to reply a bullet with a bullet,” he stated.
He stated the federal government had supplied Khan’s social gathering permission to carry a sit-in protest at an open discipline on Islamabad’s outskirts, including the social gathering’s leaders took this supply to Khan at his jail cell, however, “we haven’t but heard again on it.“
Naqvi added the protesters wouldn’t be allowed to achieve exterior parliament, warning the federal government will probably be compelled to make use of “excessive” steps if they didn’t budge, which may embody imposing curfew or calling in military troops.
“We won’t allow them to cross our pink traces,” he stated
However Khan’s social gathering accused the federal government of utilizing extreme violence to dam the protesters and stated tons of of employees and leaders had been arrested.
“They’re even firing stay bullets,” one in all Khan’s aides, Shaukat Yousafzai, informed Geo Information.
Reuters TV and native TV footage confirmed police firing teargas canisters at Khan’s supporters, who had been pelting them with stones and bricks.
The movies confirmed autos and bushes ablaze alongside the principle march simply exterior Islamabad because the protesters at some locations pushed cargo containers to make their means.
Gatherings in Islamabad have been banned, whereas all colleges within the capital and the adjoining metropolis of Rawalpindi had been to stay closed on Monday and Tuesday, the authorities stated,
The protest march, which Khan has described because the “last name”, is one in all many his social gathering had held to hunt his launch since he was jailed in August final 12 months. The social gathering’s most up-to-date protest in Islamabad, early in October, turned violent.
Voted out of energy by parliament in 2022 after he fell out with Pakistan’s highly effective navy, Khan faces fees starting from corruption to instigation of violence, all of which he and his social gathering deny.
Supply hyperlink
