Pakistani authorities have arrested nearly a thousand supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan who stormed the capital this week to demand Khan’s release, the police chief said on Wednesday.
The former prime minister’s aides claimed, without immediately providing evidence, that hundreds of people suffered gunshot wounds during chaotic scenes overnight in central Islamabad as police dispersed that they had breached security barricades.
Islamabad police chief Ali Rizvi denied that live ammunition was used during the operation, which he said police conducted with paramilitary forces.
Rizvi said 600 protesters were arrested in Tuesday’s (26) operation, bringing the total since (24) to 954 people. He said weapons, including automatic rifles and tear gas weapons, were seized at the protest site, where thousands gathered.
Ali Amin Gandapur, a top aide to Khan and chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province who took part in the protests and fled when the operation began, accused authorities of using excessive force against protesters who he said were peaceful. He said “hundreds” suffered gunshot wounds.
Pakistan’s information minister and an Islamabad police spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the allegation.
“Imran Khan’s wife and I were directly attacked,” Gandapur said at a news conference in the city of Mansehra, the province he governs. Bushra Khan, Khan’s wife, escaped unharmed.
Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), said she would speak at the press conference with Gandapur, but Bushra did not show up, even though the event was postponed for hours.
PTI spokesperson Zulfikar Bukhari PTI earlier said the protest seeking Khan’s release had been cancelled, citing what he called “the massacre”. But Gandapur said the protest would continue until Khan called it off.
Six dead in protests
At least six people — four paramilitary soldiers and two protesters — were killed in the protests before the night clashes, according to PTI.
But Home Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s office denied the information. “So far, no deaths have been reported, and allegations circulating about such incidents are baseless and unverified,” it said in a statement.
Naqvi said law enforcement agencies had successfully cleared protesters from the protest site and other areas of the capital. He asked PTI to provide any evidence of firing of live ammunition by security forces and said he had not provided any details about the deaths of his supporters.
Geo News and broadcaster ARY said security forces stormed 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.
On Wednesday, city workers were clearing rubble and moving some of the shipping containers that authorities had used to block roads around the capital.
The red zone – the fortified area housing parliament, the diplomatic enclave and other important 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 the flames. .
The PTI had planned to hold a protest in the red zone until Khan, who has been in jail since August last year, was released.
Pakistan’s benchmark stock index jumped more than 5% after falling 3.6% on Tuesday on news of clashes.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told a televised cabinet meeting that the struggling economy could not afford a crippling protest that cost it 190 billion rupees, about $680 million, a day.
