Pakistan arrests Khan’s party leaders as army called to quell unrest

Pakistani authorities took senior leaders of former prime minister Imran Khan’s party into custody as the government called in the army to help end widespread, deadly protests sparked by Khan’s arrest.

At least three party leaders have been arrested so far, one from outside the Supreme Court late on Wednesday and another, a foreign minister in Khan’s cabinet, early yesterday.

Tensions remained high with paramilitary troops and police on the streets in major cities yesterday.

Mobile data services remained suspended and schools and offices were closed in two of Pakistan’s four provinces.

The Islamabad police said early yesterday troops had reached the capital city.

Protesters have stormed military buildings, ransacked the residence of a top army general in the eastern city of Lahore, and set ablaze state buildings and assets in other places since Khan’s arrest by the anti-graft agency on Tuesday in a land fraud case.

At least five people have died in the violence that has aggravated instability in the South Asian country of 220million people as it grapples with a severe economic crisis.

“Such a spectacle has never been witnessed in the last 75 years,” Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister, said in a televised address.

“People were made hostages in their vehicles, patients were taken out of ambulances and later, vehicles were torched.”

Authorities arrested Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a former foreign minister and vice-chair of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI) party yesterday, a statement on Twitter said.

Two other senior PTI leaders, Asad Umar and Fawad Chaudhry, were arrested on Wednesday, Chaudry from outside the Supreme Court .

The party has challenged Khan’s arrest at the top court.

“There is a very real propaganda campaign against PTI, attempting to position us as violent creators of terror,” a statement on Qureshi’s Twitter profile quoted him as saying.

The federal government approved requests on Wednesday from two of Pakistan’s four provinces Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, both Khan strongholds and the federal capital Islamabad to deploy troops to restore order.

Police had arrested more than 1,650 protesters in Khan’s home province of Punjab for violence, the police chief’s office said in a statement.

Some 80 workers of Khan’s party were also arrested in the southwestern city of Quetta.