Mass Arrests in Pakistan Following Detention of Former Prime Minister Imran Khan

Mobile data services have been disrupted for the second consecutive day, while Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook have also been affected. Security forces are working to restore order after violence resulted in one death on Tuesday night. The government has stated that supporters of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party attacked significant government buildings and damaged private and public vehicles. Police arrested 945 of his supporters in Punjab province after 25 police vehicles and over 14 government buildings were set on fire.

“This cannot be tolerated, the law will take its course,” said Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal at a press conference. “These violent attacks were not the result of public overflow; they were planned by the ranks and members of the PTI.”

State of Emergency and Protests

Authorities in three of Pakistan’s four provinces have imposed a state of emergency, banning all gatherings after Khan’s supporters clashed with police. Khan, 70, was arrested by Pakistan’s anti-corruption agency at the Islamabad High Court. Police said a hearing would take place at the police guesthouse where he is being held in Islamabad’s police lines area.

The PTI has called on its supporters to gather in the capital and organize a “shutdown” across the country of 220 million people. Khan’s arrest comes a day after the powerful Pakistani military reprimanded him for repeatedly accusing a top military official of wanting to orchestrate his assassination and the former armed forces chief of being behind his removal from power last year.

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Economic and Judicial Consequences

The Pakistani rupee fell 1.3% to a record low of 288.5 against the US dollar on Wednesday, while the Pakistan Stock Exchange’s 100 Index dropped 0.7% in early trading before recovering. An IMF bailout plan for Pakistan has been delayed for months, as the country’s foreign exchange reserves are barely sufficient to cover a month of imports.

PTI Vice President Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the party leadership was in Islamabad to meet Khan and would approach the Supreme Court to challenge the Islamabad High Court’s order that deemed Khan’s arrest legal.

“We continue to call on the workers, supporters, and people of Pakistan to take to the streets to peacefully protest this unconstitutional behavior,” Qureshi wrote on Twitter.

Protests have disrupted activities in several cities. In Peshawar, a chicken seller, Malagul Khan, said his shop and others were destroyed during the clashes. Raja Imran, a 25-year-old resident of Peshawar, said, “There is total chaos throughout the country… School-going children will suffer.”

Imran Khan was removed from his position as Prime Minister in April 2022 during a parliamentary no-confidence vote. He has not slowed down his campaign against his removal, even though he was injured in an attack on his convoy in November while leading a protest march in Islamabad demanding early general elections. The corruption case is one of over 100 cases filed against Khan since his removal after four years in power. In most cases, Khan faces being banned from public office if found guilty, with a national election scheduled for November.