All Hell Breaks Loose in Nuclear-Armed Pakistan After Imran Khan’s Arrest
All hell is breaking loose in Pakistan, amid fears there could be a slide into widescale civil unrest or even full-blown civil war, after on Tuesday the former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested and taken into police custody while he was entering the Islamabad High Court for a hearing in a case.
The 70-year-old cricketer-turned-politician has been pursued in court filings by Pakistan’s anti-corruption agency, but the dramatic move to actually detain Khan is a huge and unprecedented escalation, threatening to unleash mayhem in the streets of the nuclear-armed country.
His party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), immediately called for mass protests, which quickly exploded across multiple cities and in front police and military locations, including in the capital Islamabad, but also in Lahore, Karachi, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Multan, Peshawar, and Mardan – according to international reports.
Viral images and video of Khan being escorted by security forces in riot control gear and whisked away in an armoured van are fueling anger in the streets. A government statement has said the arrest was “for the crime of corruption”.
Heightening the risk of national instability is the fact that many of Khan’s well-placed enemies are top military and intelligence officials.
Already there are reports of casualties from the protests coming out of Pakistan on Tuesday, also with reports and footage showing that demonstrators have stormed a Pakistani Army headquarters.
