ISLAMABAD: A key aide of jailed ex-premier Imran Khan said on Tuesday Bushra Khan, the former PM’s wife, and key party leader Ali Amin Gandapur, who are leading protests in Islamabad to demand Khan’s release, had left a protest caravan but were safe amid widespread reports they had been arrested.

At least six people, including four paramilitary soldiers and two protesters, were killed during clashes between security forces and protesters who made it on Monday night to the edge of Islamabad’s highly fortified red zone, home to key government and diplomatic buildings, before being pushed back by hundreds of security forces, according to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. 

“We are trying to secure Bushra Bibi and Ali Amin for the next few hours because we have credible sources that the law enforcement plans to arrest them with a heavy hand,” Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari, a spokesman for the PTI party told Arab News when asked if Bushra and Gandapur had left the protest caravan. He confirmed they had not been arrested. 

Bukhari declined to disclose where the two protest leaders had been taken, but confirmed that their protest caravan, which was nearing the D-Chowk public square in the red zone, had been pushed further back by “hundreds” of security officials. 

Two security officials told Arab News an “operation” had been launched against the PI protest, declining further details.

Supporters of Khan’s PTI on Tuesday reached D-Chowk for a “do or die” sit-in that they say will go on until Khan is freed from prison. The former premier has been jailed since August last year and faces a slew of charges from corruption to terrorism that he says are politically motivated to keep him behind bars and away from politics. 

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi ruled out talks with protesters. 

“In today’s meeting, the clear-cut decision of the prime minister and others is that there will be no talks with these protesters,” Naqvi said after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met his cabinet and other top officials on Tuesday evening. 

Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said the government had agreed to offer the protesters space on the outskirts of Islamabad to hold their protest and would have facilitated them in their activities. 

“But why do they want to go to D-Chowk?” the information minister asked. “Because they want to cause damage to the life and property of Islamabad’s citizens. They have among them Afghan nationals, terrorists, dacoits.” 

In a message shared with supporters from jail by his team, Khan, 72, urged his followers to stay peaceful but to stand firm til the end. 

“My message for my team is to fight until the last ball is bowled. We will not back down until our demands are met!”

LOCKDOWN

As thousands of rally goers left for Islamabad on Sunday in protest caravans, authorities shut down major highways leading to the capital and used shipping containers to block major roads and streets inside the city. Mobile Internet links and apps like WhatsApp have been down since the weekend and schools have been closed for several days in the capital and the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi. 

Last week, the district administration also banned public gatherings in Islamabad for two months, and on Monday, the interior ministry invoked Article 245, calling in the army to maintain law and order. 

A round of the federal capital by Arab News on Tuesday afternoon showed that all entry and exit points of the city had been sealed again with shipping containers shortly after protesters removed them to enter the city. The Srinagar Highway, the main artery connecting the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, was littered with stones that protesters had reportedly hurled at security personnel on their way to D-Chowk. 

Local residents of Rawalpindi and Islamabad could be seen distributing food and water among protesters on the Srinagar Highway while helicopters hovered above. 

Protest leader Ali Amin Gandapur, whose caravan had still not reached D-Chowk by Tuesday evening, urged protesters to camp at the square and not advance further into the red zone. 

“D-Chowk means D-Chowk,” the chief minister told supporters from atop a truck en route to the public square. “Beyond that, as long as Imran Khan’s orders, Imran Khan’s instructions are not given, we will not go beyond that area and we will respect his instructions.”

Amnesty International called on the Pakistan government to protect and ensure the rights of protesters and “immediately rescind the ‘shoot-on-sight’ orders that provide undue and excessive powers to the military.”

“The severe restrictions on assembly, movement and mobile and Internet services as well as arbitrary detentions of thousands of protesters across Pakistan, particularly in Islamabad, are a grave violation of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, movement and expression,” the rights group said on X.