Police arrest over 100 opposition activists
islamabad — Police on Sunday arrested more than 100 supporters of opposition politician Imran Khan who entered Islamabad days before a planned protest shutdown of the capital, the interior minister said.
“About 450 people entered Islamabad today,” Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told a press conference.
“Police intercepted them but most of them ran away, many leaving their cars behind. Police arrested more than 100 of them.”
Officers seized seven Kalashnikov rifles, 21 rifle magazines, tear gas and seven bulletproof jackets, the minister said.
Chaudhry Nisar said that Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf planned to occupy the Pakistan Secretariat, an office complex housing government ministries.
“They want to occupy the Pakistan Secretariat and the plan is not to allow government employees to enter,” he said.
The minister said that on Saturday night some 1,200 PTI activists tried to drive in convoy to Islamabad from Peshawar.
When police stopped them on the motorway they beat up officers but had to retreat when reinforcements arrived.
“The lockdown of the capital is not a crime against government, but a crime against the state. We are a nuclear power and what impression
Five Kalashnikovs recovered from PTI leader’s car
will it make before the world if a mob comes to the capital of the country to shut it down?” the minister said.
Imran Khan denied that his activists and workers had possessed weapons. —