Imran Khan's party suspends protest in Islamabad at least four dead in overnight crackdown

    Islamabad, Nov 27 (PTI) Jailed former premier Imran Khan's party on Wednesday suspended "for the time being" its protest in Islamabad after a midnight crackdown by the authorities that reportedly killed four people and injured over 50 others.
    About a thousand protesters have been arrested since Sunday when Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party launched a march towards Islamabad demanding his release.
    The crackdown forced Khan's party supporters to retreat from D-Chowk in Islamabad's Red Zone, where most government buildings are located, with his party describing the action as a "massacre" under the “fascist military regime".
    Authorities began reopening roads and cleaning all major thoroughfares vandalised during the three-day protest.
    After a day of violent clashes between security forces and protesters, Khan's party announced early Wednesday that it was calling off its planned sit-in.
    "In view of the government's brutality and the government's plan to turn the capital into a slaughterhouse for unarmed citizens, (we) announce the suspension of the peaceful protest for the time being," Khan's party said in a press release posted on X.
    It said that future action would be announced “in light of directions” from Khan after the party’s political and core committees presented their “analyses of the state brutality” to him.
    Early Wednesday, police and Rangers launched an operation to clear the Blue Area business area, forcing the protesters to move away along with Khan's wife Bushra Bibi and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur.
    The midnight clashes with the security personnel left at least four people dead. Two bodies and 26 people - with gunshot wounds - were received at the Polyclinic Hospital in Islamabad, hospital sources said.
    Separately, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the largest hospital in the capital, told Geo News that they received two bodies and 28 injured.
    Senior party leader and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Gandapur, who retreated from the protest site in Islamabad, on Wednesday resurfaced in Mansehra, where he assured his party workers that the “sit-in is still ongoing”.
    "People have died in this protest, we must pray for them," he said during a press conference at the residence of KP Speaker Babar Saleem Swati. "We have been targets of violence."
    "Khan sahib gave this call, and he said this protest will continue until I call it off," Gandapur was quoted as saying by Dawn newspaper.
    Speaking alongside Gandapur, Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Omar Ayub Khan alleged there was “an attack with a murderous intent” on Gandapur and Khan's wife Bushra Bibi at D-Chowk, where they were leading their convoy.
    Meanwhile, Islamabad Inspector General of Police Ali Nasir Rizvi said 954 protesters were arrested between Sunday and Tuesday by law enforcement agencies. He said that 610 of the arrests were made “only on Tuesday alone”.
    "We will not tolerate any terrorist activity,” Rizvi said while addressing a press conference.
    "How can you call it a protest when law enforcement personnel are fired upon, or when public property is damaged?
    "This is not protest... this is terrorism and terrorism is a form of crime,” he said.
    Footage shared by PTI supporters on social media showed a security man pushing a protester off a shipping container, apparently placed by the authorities to prevent marchers from entering D-chowk.
    Khan's party condemned the alleged “killing” and “terror and brutality against peaceful protesters in the name of an operation”.
    It urged the chief justice to take suo motu notice of the alleged “brutal murder" of party workers and order legal action against the prime minister, interior minister and police chiefs of Islamabad and Punjab for an “attempt to murder.”
    In a video clip, PTI General Secretary Salman Akram Raja claimed that 20 party workers were killed in the protest and they have details of eight of them so far.
    Zulfi Bukhari, another leader of PTI, claimed that there were 40 bodies in hospitals but no information was being shared by the Polyclinic and Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences hospitals.
    However, all senior officials, including Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Information Minister Atta Tarar, rejected their claims about casualties. 
    Talking to the media, Tarar said that he took a round from D-Chowk to Seventh Avenue in Islamabad last night and did not find any shells of bullets or signs of firing by the law enforcers.
    “It is regrettable that the PTI people are now creating a false narrative of deaths of their workers to justify their escape from the spot," he said.
    On Tuesday evening, Khan's supporters battled law enforcement agencies and succeeded in reaching D-Chowk for a sit-in as part of their protest march that started on Sunday. The supporters' clash with police killed at least six security personnel and injured dozens since Monday midnight.
    Bushra and Gandapur had announced that the protesters would not go away until Khan, who had given the 'final call' for protest, was released from jail.
    The 72-year-old former premier, who has been in jail since August last year, issued a 'final call' on November 13 for nationwide protests on November 24, denouncing what he termed as the stolen mandate, the unjust arrests of people and the passage of the 26th amendment, which he said has strengthened a “dictatorial regime”.
    Earlier, Khan's party in a reaction to the midnight crackdown, blamed the government for using violence and killing hundreds of its workers.
    “A massacre has unfolded in Pakistan at the hands of security forces under the brutal, fascist military regime led by the Shehbaz-Zardari-Asim alliance. The nation is drowning in blood,” it said in a post on X referring to the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President Asif Ali Zardari and Army chief Gen Asim Munir.
    The party said that the armed security forces launched a violent assault on PTI protesters, firing live rounds with the intent to kill as many people as possible.
    Through Tuesday and Wednesday, the party shared videos and photos from the violent crackdown on its social media accounts.
    Meanwhile, life was turning to normal in Islamabad and neighbouring Rawalpindi as Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Irfan Memon directed all assistant commissioners to ensure the immediate reopening of all closed routes across the city.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)