ISLAMABAD: Former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan set out on a rally in Lahore on Monday, announcing that he would hold a 'show of power' gathering on Sunday at a historical monument, days after his calls to launch his party’s election campaign were marred by clashes between police and his supporters.
Khan called off his first election rally in the eastern city of Lahore on March 8 after the government imposed a ban on political gatherings, citing security concerns. However, supporters came out on the roads and clashes broke out with police. One supporter was killed that day in what the PTI has called a case of custodial torture, which police deny.
On Sunday, the ex-premier once again postponed a public gathering until Monday afternoon after the government restricted his party from holding the rally.
The March 8 rally had been announced as the start of Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) election campaign for general elections for the provincial assembly in Punjab, dissolved in January by a Khan ally party in a bid to force early national elections in the country.
Hours after setting off from home, Khan's convoy reached Lahore's famed Data Darbar shrine where the PTI leader announced a major rally on Sunday at the Minar-e-Pakistan monument, a tower built to preserve the spot where the Lahore Resolution draft was passed in 1940, calling for the creation of a free, Muslim nation in South Asia.
"Inshallah, next Sunday, at 2pm, we will hold a rally at Minar-e-Pakistan," Khan told supporters from inside his bullet-proof black vehicle.
"I want to do it in the day because I want to show the whole nation how the people are standing with my fight for freedom ... We won't be able to see in the night. I am telling all Lahoris, we have to come out in the afternoon."
Meanwhile, an Islamabad district and sessions court on Monday issued non-bailable arrest warrants for Khan in a case in which he is accused of threatening a woman judge and senior police officers last year, adding to his ever-growing legal woes.
In a separate case, a district and sessions court restored a non-bailable arrest warrant against Khan in a case in which the election commission of Pakistan had in October found the 70-year-old cricket-hero-turned-politician guilty of not declaring assets earned by selling gifts from foreign dignitaries.
There are more than 70 cases filed against Khan in different court in Pakistan, with charges ranging from attempted murder to terrorism and sedition, which carries the death penalty.
Khan was ousted from power in a parliamentary no-trust vote in April last year and has since been campaigning for nationwide polls, which are otherwise scheduled to be held by October.
Khan also led countrywide protest campaigns to press for an early vote last year and was shot at and wounded at one of the rallies.
In January, Khan's party and allies dissolved provincial assemblies in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces as part of the effort to force the coalition government of PM Shehbaz Sharif to announce snap national polls.
General elections are scheduled to be held in Punjab on April 30.
