ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi this week urged former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to avoid protesting on Feb. 8, the same day a tri-nation series involving international cricket teams from South Africa and New Zealand is to kick off in the eastern city of Lahore. 

Khan’s party has called on thousands of his supporters to mark the one-year anniversary of Pakistan’s controversial Feb. 8, 2024 general election as a “Black Day.” The former prime minister has urged people from all walks of life to hold protests in their respective cities against alleged rigging on Feb. 8. 

Last year’s polls were marred by a countrywide shutdown of cellphone networks and delayed results, leading to widespread allegations of election manipulation by the PTI and other opposition parties. The caretaker government and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) denied the allegations. The US House of Representatives, as well as European countries, have called on Islamabad to open a probe into the allegations — a move that Pakistan has thus far rejected.

Pakistan is set to host New Zealand and South Africa for a tri-nation cricket series starting Feb. 8-14 in Lahore and Karachi. The matches on Feb. 8 and 10 will be held in Lahore. Pakistan will then host the eight-nation Champions Trophy cricket tournament from Feb. 19-Mar. 9 in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Karachi. 

“Like before we will request them not to do this [Feb. 8 protest],” Naqvi told reporters at a press conference in Lahore on Saturday. 

“I did this before too when they started giving dates for the Nov. 26 [protests]. If they don’t [call off the protest] then...,” Naqvi paused abruptly without finishing the sentence, hinting the government would take action. 

The interior minister was referring to the party’s November protests last year in which thousands of Khan supporters arrived in the capital, threatening to demand his release from prison. The government says four troops were killed in clashes, a charge the PTI denies and says scores of its workers were also killed.  

Khan’s ouster in a parliamentary no-trust vote in 2022 has plunged Pakistan into a political crisis, particularly since the PTI founder was jailed in August 2023 on corruption and other charges and remains behind bars. 

Khan’s party and the government held talks last month to ease political tensions in the country. However, the PTI ended negotiations this month, saying the government had failed to honor its demands of establishing judicial commissions to probe the protests of May 9, 2023, and November 2024. 

PESHAWR: Four soldiers of the paramilitary Levies force were killed after they were targeted by firing and an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in northwestern Pakistan’s Dera Ismail Khan district, a police officer said on Sunday.

According to D.I. Khan police officer Amer Khan, the four Levies personnel were in the district from southwestern Pakistan’s Khanozai area to retrieve a stolen truck. 

Noor Ahmad Naib, ⁠Rasheed Zaman, ⁠Dawood Khan and Bilal Ahmad left for DI Khan on Feb. 1, the police officer said, adding that their vehicle was attacked in the district’s Daraban area. 

“Upon initial reports, all embraced martyrdom due to firing followed by an IED blast,” Khan told Arab News. 

So far no group has claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion is likely to fall on the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or the Pakistani Taliban, who have launched attacks on Pakistan’s security forces and law enforcement personnel for over a decade-and-a-half. 

Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militancy in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan, since a fragile truce between the TTP and the state broke down in November 2022.

The TTP and other militant groups have stepped up their attacks against security forces, besides targeted killings and kidnappings of law enforcers and government officials, in recent months. 

Islamabad has frequently accused neighboring Afghanistan of sheltering anti-Pakistan groups that launch cross-border attacks. Afghan officials deny allowing the use of their soil against any country.

The latest casualties in the province come a day after the military said 18 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a militant attack in southwestern Balochistan province. The military said it had killed at least 23 militants in subsequent clearance operations.