ISLAMABAD: Ali Amin Gandapur, a close aide and senior leader of former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, said on Wednesday an anti-government sit-in protest would continue even as thousands of Khan supporters dispersed from Islamabad following a sweeping midnight raid by security forces.
Thousands of protesters had gathered at the D-Chowk square in Islamabad on Tuesday after a convoy led by Khan’s wife Bushra Khan and Gandapur broke through several lines of security and reached the edge of the city’s highly fortified red zone, home to key government and diplomatic buildings. Khan’s supporters were demanding the jailed former premier’s release from prison and the independence of the senior judiciary and were protesting against alleged rigging in the February national election, which the election commission denies.
A raid that started around midnight plunged the area into darkness as tear gas was unleashed on supporters, who dispersed. Gandapur and Bushra Khan also left the protest convoy and on Wednesday morning, the PTI said it was canceling the protest “for the time being in view of the government’s brutality and plans to turn the capital into a slaughterhouse for unarmed citizens.”
Addressing the media from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province the PTI rules and of which Gandapur is the chief minister, he said the sit-in would go on.
“This sit-in is a movement that is continuing, Iit will keep on continuing in every way,” he said.
“If you [police] shoot people, arrest them, and won’t release them [protesters], people will keep coming using another way. Whosoever can make it, god willing, they will keep the movement running. Until [ex-premier Imran] Khan’s call, this sit-in will go on.”
PTI Secretary General Salman AKram Raja said in a video message at least 20 supporters had been killed in the protests, while the government says four troops have died.
Inspector General of Police in Islamabad, Ali Nasir Rizvi, said around 900 protesters, including 19 Afghan nationals, had been arrested.
“Everybody has a right to protest but we will not tolerate any terrorist activity in the garb of the protest,” Rizvi said during a news conference with Islamabad Chief Commissioner Mohammad Ali Randhawa by his side.
Children collect recyclables from the burnt truck used by Bushra Bibi, wife of jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, after security forces launched a raid on supporters of Khan's party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) who had stormed the capital demanding his release on Tuesday, in Islamabad, Pakistan, on November 27, 2024. (REUTERS)
He alleged protesters had fired at law enforcement personnel during the protest.
“The way these people entered Islamabad, they will not be called demonstrators but terrorists,” he said, adding that police had confiscated 39 weapons from protesters, which included three Kalashnikovs and pistols, while 71 law enforcement personnel were injured during clashes and 27 had bullet wounds.
“THANK GOD”
An Arab News survey of major parts of Islamabad on Wednesday morning showed traffic on the roads, and shops and businesses open. Shipping containers that had been blocking roads inside the city since last week and had been used to disconnect the city from major motorways and highways had been removed.
Sanitary workers were busy cleaning the roads of debris left from the raid, while security personnel had moved back to their barracks.
Pakistan’s stock market registered a growth of over 4,600 points at the close of trade on Wednesday, marking a return to its bullish trend after recording a decline on Tuesday.
“Thank God, the sit-in has ended. These protests have made our lives hell due to heightened security and subsequent teargassing on the demonstrators,” Asif Ali, a resident of Islamabad’s F-6 sector, told Arab News.
Shop owners in Islamabad also breathed a sigh of relief.
“The government should allocate a specific place to protesters in Islamabad to register their dissent instead of allowing them to the center of the city that leads to closure of all businesses,” Haider Sultan, a mobile shop owner in the city’s Blue Area, told Arab News.
Khan, who was ousted from power in a parliamentary no-trust vote in 2022, has been in prison since last year. He faces a slew of charges from terrorism to corruption that he says are politically motivated to keep him in jail and away from politics. The charges kept Khan away from Feb. 8 general elections that his party says were rigged, an accusation denied by the election commission.
