Tear gas shells, burnt tyres and vehicles litter the roads in Lahore’s Zaman Park area which has turned into a battleground after supporters of Imran Khan engaged in pitched battles lasting over 11 hours with police personnel to stop them from arresting the ousted Pakistan premier.
This comes after a non-bailable warrant was issued in the ongoing Toshakhana (gift depository) case against Imran Khan.
Imran is accused of concealing the details of the gifts he retained from the Toshakhana. He allegedly earned $36 million by selling three watches gifted to him.
Clashes across Pakistan
There have also been clashes between Khan’s supporters and police in other major cities, including Karachi, Islamabad, the garrison city of Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta and elsewhere in Pakistan.
The upscale area of Zaman Park where Khan lives remained under siege and the government was sending additional police to tackle the situation after hundreds of Khan’s supporters showed unexpected perseverance.
For more than 11 hours, PTI workers engaged capital police in pitched battles that continued late into the night.
As night fell in Lahore, the PTI workers had gained the upper hand — not only had it opened more fronts across the city, the influx of a large number of supporters into Zaman Park forced security men to retreat. By midnight, police had suffered around 30 casualties, the Dawn newspaper reported on Wednesday.
At a late-night meeting summoned by the Punjab interim chief minister Mohsin Naqvi to take stock of the security situation in the provincial capital, it was decided to make another bid to detain the PTI chief and wrap up the operation before the morning.
On Tuesday, about a dozen police and some 35 of Khan’s supporters were reported injured as tear gas shells and pieces of bricks littered the pavement as Khan’s followers fought back with batons they had brought to resist police.
Pak Rangers join police teams in fresh attempt to arrest ex-PM Imran
A heavy contingent of Punjab Rangers joined the police personnel near Imran Khan’s Zaman Park residence on Wednesday to launch a fresh attempt at arresting the ousted Pakistani premier for failing to appear in court on graft charges.
In order to set the plan in motion, fresh units of police and Rangers took positions on The Mall in the early hours of Wednesday.
This is the second time in less than 10 days that the police have arrived at Zaman Park to apprehend the deposed prime minister.
It is the second time in recent weeks that police have been sent from the capital Islamabad to Khan’s home in the eastern city of Lahore to serve an arrest warrant after he skipped several court dates linked to a corruption case citing security concerns.
‘Arrest mere drama, real intent is to abduct and kill me’
“Clearly ‘arrest’ claim was mere drama because real intent is to abduct & assassinate. From tear gas & water cannons, they have now resorted to live firing. I signed a surety bond last evening, but the DIG refused to even entertain it. There is no doubt of their mala fide intent,” Khan tweeted on Wednesday.
Khan has claimed that the string of cases against him, which includes terrorism charges, are a plot by the government of his successor, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, to discredit the former cricket star turned Islamist politician.
In a fresh address on Wednesday, Imran Khan said that the “hope lies with the courts and establishment” in ending this “farce” as law enforcement agencies made another push to enter the former prime minister’s Zaman Park residence in Lahore, reports Dawn.
With LEAs at the entrance of his house, Imran asked what his crime was, saying that “never have we ever witnessed this … never have I ever seen such an attack on a political leader’s house”.
Imran said that the case against him was being heard at the F8 Katcheri in Islamabad, where blasts have been reported in the past and so many lawyers and judges have lost their lives.
Police say a court in Islamabad ordered Khan’s arrest for not appearing before it despite repeated summons. Khan and his aides cite security concerns for the non-appearance. He was injured in an attack on his protest gathering last year.
Khan says 76 cases have been registered against him since he was ousted by a parliamentary vote in April 2022, less than four years into his five-year term. He has appeared in court for other cases.
If convicted, Khan faces being barred from holding public office, which would be a setback for the cricketer-turned-politician with a national election scheduled for November.