Imran Khan supporters rally in Pakistan despite ban, arrests

Pakistan’s authorities have arrested hundreds of supporters of incarcerated leader Imran Khan amid skirmishes with the police in multiple cities and blocked highways after the former premier’s call to converge in the capital Islamabad.

The biggest convoy led by Khan’s top leaders from the northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has removed roadblocks on the highway and about 25 kilometers outside the capital, according to posts by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party on X on Monday. The police is ready to block the rally from entering Islamabad, local media has reported.

The protest won’t end until Imran Khan “comes back to us,” Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi said at the rally outside Islamabad.

Khan called on his supporters to protest until Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government agreed to free jailed party leaders and reverse a new law that gives the government permission to interfere in judicial affairs.

The government has also suspended cellular services in some areas, blocked highways leading to the capital while the police has imposed a law that prohibits public gathering of more than five people in Islamabad, according to statements by the government on X and the police. A court last week barred Khan’s party from staging a sit-in in Islamabad on the eve of an official visit by Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday.

The fresh protest is seen as the biggest by the opposition group since Sharif’s coalition government took power after national elections in February. The premier has said such protests serve as a distraction to his government that is confronted with a critical task of reforming the country’s weak economy by taking difficult decisions under the International Monetary Fund’s loan program. Those include taxing the agriculture and retail sectors that have resisted attempts in the past.

The government estimates that the protest is causing a daily loss of about 144 billion rupees ($518 million) to the economy, according to finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb. The country’s benchmark stock index rose 0.1% on Monday at 3:30pm local time provisional close.

“We don’t want to crush a peaceful protest but we cannot allow violence and disruption in the capital,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told reporters last week. The police had prepared for the protest by bringing shipping containers into the city to block major entry points and roads.

Khan gave the protest call after repeated court orders granted him bail in different cases or suspending his conviction but he failed to secure his freedom. Each time the court has ordered his release, the government arrested him in a different case to keep him in jail, where he is languishing for more than a year. The politician is facing over 150 cases from corruption to inciting violence and misuse of power when he was the premier.