LAHORE, Pakistan — Police arrested greater than 200 supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday as they tried to carry rallies in cities all through Pakistan to mark the second anniversary of Khan’s arrest, a celebration spokesman and officers mentioned.
The detainees included Rehana Dar, 73, a politician from Khan’s get together identified for her fiery speeches towards the federal government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. She was seen being thrown right into a police truck within the northeastern metropolis of Lahore.
Zulfiqar Bukhari, a spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, mentioned police used batons and fired tear gasoline to disperse demonstrators in Lahore and the southern provincial capital of Karachi.
He mentioned their get together had deliberate peaceable rallies to denounce Khan’s incarceration and demand justice for him. However the authorities responded by imposing a ban on gatherings within the capital, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi, the place Khan is imprisoned following convictions in a number of circumstances towards him that supporters say have been politically motivated.
Most of the 200 arrests have been in Rawalpindi, the place supporters presumably have been detained for violating the ban. Most of the different arrests have been in Lahore, although it was unclear on what grounds.
The crackdown on PTI supporters got here hours after Pakistan’s election oversight physique disqualified opposition chief Omar Ayub Khan and several other different PTI lawmakers following their convictions over their alleged function in riots that broke out in Might 2023 after Khan’s preliminary arrest in a corruption case.
Khan was ousted from workplace in April 2022 by a no-confidence vote spearheaded by Sharif, the then-opposition chief and present prime minister.