ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan on Tuesday condemned a “brutal crackdown” on the workers and leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party after reports of police raids on the residences of his top aides started spreading on social media platforms.
Khan, who was ousted from power last month in a no-confidence vote after he lost his parliamentary majority, announced an anti-government march on Islamabad on Sunday, asking his followers to meet him in there on May 25.
He has held several huge rallies in various Pakistani cities in recent weeks, demanding fresh elections while refusing to accept the new government.
Several of Khan’s top politicians, including Hammad Azhar, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and Yasmeen Rashid, complained of being harassed by the police ahead of the planned agitation in Islamabad.
“Peaceful protest is the right of all our citizens,” Khan said in a Twitter post. “The brutal crackdown on PTI [leaders] & workers in Punjab & Islamabad has once again shown us what we are familiar with — the fascist nature of [the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party] when in power.”
While the government had said it would not stop Khan’s party from holding peaceful protests, there were speculations the police would ultimately begin to round up PTI workers and supporters.
The former prime minister pointed out in one of his tweets that his government had never prevented any protest demonstration by leaders of its rival factions, including Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam (JUI) and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).
“PPP, PMLN and JUI Marches against our govt were never stopped nor did we carry out any crackdown on their workers,” he noted. “This is the difference between democrats and kleptocrats.”
Khan maintained that Pakistan’s economy was already in a tailspin, adding that such political friction could further exacerbate the situation and lead the country to anarchy.
Meanwhile, police in Lahore informed one of their constables Kamal Ahmed was shot in the chest and killed while he was raiding the house of a PTI leader in Model Town with his other uniformed colleagues.
Pakistan’s interior minister Rana Sanaullah said the incident proved the PTI never wanted to hold a peaceful march.
“Imran Khan is conspiring for civil war in the country on the pretext of holding the anti-government march,” he added. “We will bring Ahmed Kamal’s killers to justice.”
Pakistan’s former prime minister and founding leader of the ruling PML-N party Nawaz Sharif said on Twitter the people could not be left at the mercy of violent groups that had already crushed them under poverty, inflation and unemployment.
“Without dealing with such miscreants, Pakistan cannot find its true destination,” he said. “We will have to stop these miscreants as a nation.”
