Imran arrested, protests erupt
Protests erupted across Pakistan yesterday after former prime minister Imran Khan was arrested during a court appearance in the capital for one of dozens of cases pending since he was ousted last year.
His arrest follows months of political crisis and came hours after the powerful military rebuked the former international cricketer for alleging that a senior officer had been involved in a plot to kill him.
Some protesters took out their wrath on the military, storming the residence of the corps commander in Lahore and laying siege to a gate of the army's general headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.
Police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse Khan supporters in Karachi and Lahore, while protesters blocked roads in the capital Islamabad, Peshawar, and other cities.
One of Khan's supporters was killed and at least 12 people, including six policemen, were injured in Quetta during clashes.
Authorities in three of Pakistan's four provinces imposed an emergency order banning all gatherings.
Pakistan's telecommunications watchdog told Reuters that mobile data services were being suspended on interior ministry orders, while Netblocks said access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube had been restricted.
Hours after Khan's arrest, the Islamabad High Court declared the move legal, reports Dawn online.
The top diplomats of the US and Britain together called for adherence to the "rule of law" in Pakistan after Khan's arrest triggered nationwide violence.
"We just want to make sure that whatever happens in Pakistan is consistent with the rule of law, with the constitution," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a joint news conference in Washington.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, speaking alongside Blinken, noted that Britain enjoyed "a longstanding and close relationship" with Commonwealth member Pakistan. "We want to see peaceful democracy in that country. We want to see the rule of law adhered to," Cleverly said.
Khan faces dozens of charges since being ousted -- a tactic analysts say successive Pakistan governments have used to silence their opponents.
Video broadcast on TV channels showed Khan -- who has a pronounced limp since being shot during an assassination attempt last year -- being manhandled by dozens of paramilitary rangers into an armoured car inside the Islamabad High Court premises.
"As we reached the court's biometric room to mark the attendance, dozens of rangers attacked us," said Ali Bukhari, a lawyer with Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. "They beat him and dragged him out," he told AFP.
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said Khan had been arrested by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the country's top anti-corruption body.
"This arrest is in accordance with the law," he said. "NAB is an independent body and not under government control."
It was not immediately clear where Khan was taken.
The arrest comes a day after the military warned Khan against making "baseless allegations" after he again accused a senior officer of plotting to kill him.
The rebuke late Monday underscored how far Khan's relations have deteriorated with the military, which backed his rise to power in 2018 but withdrew its support ahead of a parliamentary vote of no confidence that ousted him last year.
"The timing of the arrest is striking," said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center.
"The senior army leadership is uninterested in repairing the rift between itself and Khan, and so with this arrest it's likely sending a message that the gloves are very much off."
Anticipating his arrest, party officials later released a pre-recorded video by Khan in which he urged supporters to come out in support of "true freedom".
Pakistan is deeply mired in an economic and political crisis, with Khan pressuring the struggling coalition government for early elections.
At a weekend rally in Lahore, Khan repeated claims that senior intelligence officer Major-General Faisal Naseer was involved in an assassination attempt last year during which he was shot in the leg.
The military's ISPR wing said in a statement that "this fabricated and malicious allegation is extremely unfortunate, deplorable and unacceptable".
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