Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) called off its much-hyped protest after a sweeping midnight raid by security forces in the capital Islamabad in which hundreds of people were arrested. Media reported that the party had announced a “temporary suspension” of the protest, in which at least six people, including four paramilitary soldiers and two protesters, have been killed.
This came after thousands of protesters had gathered in the centre of Islamabad on Tuesday after a convoy, led by PTI founder Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, broke through several lines of security all the way to the edge of the city’s highly fortified red zone.
A massive raid was launched by security forces in a pitch-dark central Islamabad, where lights had been turned off and a barrage of teargas was fired.
The protest gathering was almost completely dispersed.
On Wednesday morning, city workers were cleaning up debris and clearing some of the shipping containers that had blocked roads around the capital. The heavily fortified red zone was empty of protesters but several of their vehicles were left behind, including the remains of a truck from which Bushra Bibi had been leading the protests that appeared charred by flames, according to witnesses.
PTI had planned on staging a sit-in in the red zone until Imran’s release, who has been in jail since August last year.
PTI’s president for the city of Peshawar in the party’s northern stronghold of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said the party had called off the protest. “We will chalk out the new strategy later after proper consultation,” Mohammad Asim told Reuters.
He said that Bushra Bibi as well as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, a key Khan ally, had returned “safely” to the province from the capital.
Earlier, in what PTI founder and former premier Imran Khan called a “final call”, party supporters reached D-Chowk in Islamabad on Tuesday after they initiated a large-scale march towards the capital city on November 24, vowing not to return until the release of Khan.
In a bid to counter the PTI’s planned march, the government imposed Section 144 in several districts, banned public gatherings, deployed heavy contingent of police, and sealed the capital city with containers.
However, thousands of PTI supporters flocked to D-Chowk amid reports of intense tear gas shelling, the place they had promised to stage the sit-in for the release of Imran Khan as well as against alleged tampering in the February polls.