Four Pakistan security forces killed as ex-PM Imran Khan supporters flood capital

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani protesters demanding the release of

ex-prime minister Imran Khan

on Nov 26 killed four members of the nation’s security forces, the government said, as the crowds defied police and closed in on the capital’s centre.

Convoys of pro-Khan demonstrators have been marching on Islamabad since Nov 24, hauling aside roadblocks and skirmishing with police and paramilitary forces firing volleys of rubber bullets and tear gas.

Despite a ban on public gatherings, AFP journalists saw more than 10,000 protesters in the city centre on Nov 26 afternoon. Some were armed with sticks and slingshots, just 1.6km away from a square in the government enclave they aim to occupy.

Khan was barred from standing in February elections that were marred by allegations of rigging, sidelined by dozens of legal cases that he claims were confected to prevent his comeback.

But his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has defied a government crackdown with regular rallies.

The protest on Nov 26 is the largest in the capital since Khan was jailed in August 2023.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said “miscreants” involved in the march had killed four members of the paramilitary Rangers force on a city highway leading towards the government sector.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the men had been “run over by a vehicle”.

“These disruptive elements do not seek revolution but bloodshed,” he said in a statement. “This is not a peaceful protest, it is extremism.”

The government said on Nov 25 that

one police officer had been killed and nine more critically wounded

by demonstrators who set out towards Islamabad the day before.

The capital has been

locked down

since late Nov 23, with mobile internet sporadically cut and more than 20,000 police officers flooding the streets, many armed with riot shields and batons.

“The state’s response is completely unwarranted and disproportionate. We have the right to protest,” PTI lawmaker Waqas Akram told AFP by phone.

“They treat their own people as enemies,” he said.

The government has accused protesters of attempting to derail a state visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived for a three-day visit on Nov 25.

Last week, the Islamabad city administration announced a two-month ban on public gatherings.

But PTI convoys travelled from their power base in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the most populous province of Punjab.

The government cited “security concerns” for the mobile internet outages, while Islamabad’s schools and universities were ordered to shut on Nov 25 and 26.

PTI’s chief demand is the release of Khan, the 72-year-old charismatic former cricket star who served as premier from 2018 to 2022 and is the lodestar of the party.

They are also protesting alleged tampering in the February polls and a recent government-backed constitutional amendment giving it more power over the courts, where Khan is tangled in dozens of cases.

Mr Sharif’s government has come under increasing criticism for deploying heavy-handed measures to quash PTI’s protests.

“It speaks of a siege mentality on the part of the government and establishment – a state in which they see themselves in constant danger and fearful all the time of being overwhelmed by opponents,” read one opinion piece in the English-language Dawn newspaper published on Nov 25.

“This urges them to take strong-arm measures, not occasionally but incessantly.”

The US State Department appealed for protesters to refrain from violence, while also urging authorities to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to ensure respect for Pakistan’s laws and constitution as they work to maintain law and order”.

Khan was ousted by a no-confidence vote after falling out with the kingmaking military establishment that analysts say engineer the rise and fall of Pakistan’s politicians.

But as opposition leader he has led an unprecedented campaign of defiance, with PTI’s street protests boiling over into unrest that the government cited as the reason for its crackdown.

PTI won more seats than any other party in this year’s election, but a coalition of parties considered more pliable to military influence shut it out of power.

Khan has been jailed since August 2023,

facing a procession of legal accusations

ranging from illegal marriage to graft and inciting riots. AFP