Islamabad – Thousands of the demonstrators were on the march across Pakistan on Tuesday as the country was rocked by the cool political unrest caused by the dramatic arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. At least two deaths were reported amid the chaos in every major city in the Asian nation.
Khan, 70, a former Pakistan cricket captain who now leads the main opposition political party, was arrested on Tuesday morning on a series of corruption charges while appearing in the capital’s high court, Islamabad.
Video of the arrest showed dozens of paramilitary troops in riot gear surrounding Khan and leading him into a black van by the arm. Lawyer Gohar Khan, who was there, later told reporters that Khan was beaten during the arrest.
“They hit Imran’s head and leg,” he told the country’s Dawn news outlet, adding that a wheelchair Khan was using at the time was thrown aside and later confiscated during the arrest .
Khan, who heads the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) political party, was arrested a day after Pakistan’s powerful military issued a rare public rebuke to the former prime minister for repeatedly making allegations against a senior official military Khan claimed that the officer has tried to assassinate him and that the former senior army commander was behind the moves to prevent him from returning to power.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah told reporters that Khan was arrested on the orders of the country’s top anti-corruption body, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB). He said Khan and his wife were suspected of receiving land worth about $24.7 million from a developer who had been accused of money laundering by British authorities.
Sanaullah said British authorities had returned $240 million to Pakistan in connection with money laundering in the case, and said Khan was accused of returning that money to the land developer instead of keeping it in the treasury national when he was prime minister.
Khan has denied all wrongdoing.
The corruption case is one of more than 100 filed against Khan since he was ousted from power in a parliamentary vote in November 2022, after serving four years of his five-year term.
If convicted of the charges in most of the several cases against him, Khan faces being barred from holding public office. National elections are due in November and Khan, who remains very popular with many Pakistanis, is determined to run.
After Khan’s arrest, his party called on its supporters to “shut down Pakistan”.
In a message on Twitter, the party wrote: “It’s your time, people of Pakistan. Khan has always represented you, now is the time to stand up for him.”
Videos posted on Twitter showed PTI protesters besieging military installations, including the homes of army leaders in Rawalpindi and Lahore. The main thoroughfare of Karachi, the country’s largest city, was blocked and vehicles set on fire.
Authorities issued orders banning protests in several cities, including the capital Islamabad and Peshawar, the main city in the northwestern province of Khyber-Pukthunwa. In Islamabad, at least five police officers were seriously injured and 43 protesters arrested, officials said.
The PTI said two of its supporters were killed by law enforcement officers amid the chaos, one in Quetta and one in Lahore, and many videos released by party members showed protesters being fired upon in various cities.
Khan’s arrest and his party’s call for nationwide protests dealt a further blow to the nuclear-armed country struggling to deal with lingering political unrest and an economic crisis, with inflation above 36% and an expected bailout of the IMF already months overdue. .
Industrial activity has virtually ground to a halt as the central bank has raised interest rates to a record 21% to fight inflation, worsening already high unemployment and poverty rates.
Women and children have been killed in stampedes at food distribution centers as food inflation soars to an all-time high of 40%.
The IMF bailout program for the nation of 220 million people, which expires in June, has been on hold since November. Foreign exchange reserves are quickly being depleted, and the $4.5 billion left in the kitty will barely cover a month’s worth of vital imports.
Before Khan became prime minister in 2018, his biggest victory came at the 1992 Cricket World Cup, when he described his team fighting like “cornered tigers” on their way to lifting the trophy and sending millions of Pakistanis into a rapturous frenzy. The country’s military, and the coalition government now trying to run Pakistan, will be hoping that their latest escape does not turn into a repeat of that struggle.
