Over 200 workers of Imran Khan’s party arrested to thwart protest during SCO summit: Police

Lahore: Pakistan’s law enforcement agencies have arrested more than 200 workers of Imran Khan’s party in the Punjab province to thwart its planned protest in Islamabad during the SCO summit, police said on Monday.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had announced to hold a demonstration at the D-Chowk in the capital during the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit that is scheduled to begin on Tuesday.

"We have intensified the crackdown against active members of the PTI in different parts of the province and arrested over 200," a senior police officer told PTI. He said that 50 members each of the party have been arrested from Lahore and Sargodha, and others from Faisalabad, Jhang, Gujrat and Gujjar Khan.

The officer said more arrests are likely by Monday night as there has been a strict order from the government to stop the PTI workers from reaching Islamabad from Punjab.

Many PTI leaders and activists have allegedly gone into hiding to evade arrest.

There has also been a division among the PTI ranks over tomorrow's protest with Ali Mohammad Khan saying that the party should defer the protest.

PTI chairman Gohar Ali Khan said the party could consider the government's request to postpone the protest provided it allows the former prime minister to meet his legal team.

The government had imposed a ban on all kinds of meetings with Khan in Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail where he has been lodged for the last 15 months in multiple cases.

Sources said that the government may allow PTI chairman Gohar Khan and a team of lawyers to meet Khan to meet its demand for cancelling the protest.

Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari said the PTI and the Taliban are two sides of the same coin as both are enemies of Pakistan’s development and prosperity.

“The PTI has declared a war against the state. It will be treated as an enemy is treated in wartime,” Bokhari said and described the PTI as a fascist party that would go to any extent to fulfil its agenda.

Bokhari said the PTI will be dealt with an iron hand and emphasised that all political parties, including the media and judiciary, must unite against these enemies of the state. "Without eliminating this chaos, the country could not move forward," she said.

Meanwhile, local media reports said the high-level SCO meeting will be held with strict security measures in place as the government has announced a three-day public holiday in Islamabad, with schools and businesses shut, and large contingents of police and paramilitary forces deployed.

Army troops are deployed for the security of the capital's Red Zone, which will house most of the meetings and is also home to Parliament and a diplomatic enclave, according to the interior ministry.