Imran Khan supporters held in Islamabad clashes

PAKISTANI authorities arrested nearly 1,000 supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan who stormed Islamabad last week to demand his release, the city’s police chief said last Wednesday (27).

Khan’s aides alleged, without immediately providing evidence, that hundreds had suffered gunshot wounds during chaotic scenes overnight in the heart of the capital as police dispersed protesters led by Khan’s wife who had broken through security barricades. They also said thousands had been arrested.

Islamabad’s police chief Ali Rizvi denied live ammunition was used during the operation, which he said was conducted alongside paramilitary forces.

Rizvi said 600 protesters had been arrested in last Tuesday’s (26) operation, bringing the total since the protest sit-in began the previous Sunday (24) to 954.

He said weapons, including automatic rifles and tear gas, were seized from the protest site where thousands had gathered. The site was cleared within hours.

Ali Amin Gandapur, a top Khan aide and chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province who was a part of the protests and fled when the operation began, accused the authorities of using excessive force against protesters who he said were peaceful. He said “hundreds” had sustained bullet wounds.

“Both Imran Khan’s wife and I were attacked directly,” Gandapur told a press conference in the city of Mansehra, in the province he rules.

Khan’s wife Bushra Khan escaped unhurt. Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI), had said she would address the press conference with Gandapur, but she did not appear even though the event was delayed by hours.

PTI spokesperson Zulfikar Bukhari PTI said earlier that the protest seeking Khan’s release had been called off, citing what he called “the massacre”. But Gandapur said the protest would continue until Khan himself called it off.

At least six people – four paramilitary soldiers and two protesters – had been killed in the protests before the overnight clashes, according to PTI.

But the office of interior minister Mohsin Naqvi denied this. “No death has been reported, and the claims circulating regarding any such incidents are baseless and unverified,” it said in a statement.

The government said at least one police officer and four state paramilitary personnel had been killed, before the main thoroughfare was cleared by forces armed with tear gas and batons early last Wednesday.

Visiting protest sites last Wednesday, Naqvi said law enforcement had successfully cleared protesters from the sit-in site and other areas of the capital.

He called on PTI to provide evidence of live ammunition use by security forces and said it had not given details of deaths of its supporters.

Geo News and broadcaster ARY both said security forces had raided the site in central Islamabad in complete darkness, and that a barrage of tear gas had been fired. The protesters were almost completely dispersed, they added.

City workers were last Wednesday (27) clearing debris and moving away some of the shipping containers authorities had used to block roads around the capital.

The red zone – the fortified area that is home to parliament, the diplomatic enclave and other key buildings – was empty of protesters, but several of their vehicles were left behind, including the remains of a truck used by Bushra Khan that appeared charred by flames.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the protests “extremism” and told a televised cabinet meeting that the struggling economy could ill afford a paralysing protest that had cost it 190 billion rupees (£536.4m) a day. He warned of further economic fallout. Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at The Wilson Center, said on social media platform X that “Pakistan’s protests had no winners.”

Anger towards the establishment has increased significantly over the crackdown, he said, while at the same time, PTI was forced to retreat.

“Pakistan on the whole is burdened by a worsening confrontation,” he said.

Sharif’s government has come under increasing criticism for deploying heavy handed measures to quash PTI rallies.

Mobile internet was cut across Islamabad, schools shut last Monday (25) remained closed through last Wednesday, and roadblocks prevented thousands of workers from reaching their workplaces, causing widespread disruption.