His arrest came a day after the powerful military rebuked him for repeatedly accusing a senior military officer of trying to engineer his assassination and the former armed forces chief of being behind his removal from power last year.
Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper said in an editorial that “the nature and locus of the protests that broke out following Mr Khan’s arrest yesterday signal that public anger is also directed at the military”.
Khan was due to appear for two hearings on Wednesday, Geo News reported, including for a corruption case related to property and another case that alleges Khan unlawfully sold state gifts during his 2018-22 tenure as prime minister. Khan has denied wrongdoing.
The Pakistani rupee fell 1.3 per cent to a record low of 288.5 against the US dollar on Wednesday, while the 100-index of the Pakistan Stock Exchange dropped 0.7 per cent in early trading before recouping its losses.
An International Monetary Fund bailout package for Pakistan has been delayed for months even though its foreign exchange reserves are barely enough to cover a month’s imports.
SUPREME COURT CHALLENGE
PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the party’s senior leadership was in Islamabad to meet Khan and would approach the Supreme Court to challenge an Islamabad High Court order that deemed Khan’s arrest legal.
“We continue to call PTI family workers, supporters and the people of Pakistan onto the streets for peaceful protest against this unconstitutional behaviour,” Qureshi wrote on Twitter.
The protests have disrupted business in several cities. In Peshawar, chicken seller Malagul Khan said his shop and others were destroyed in the clashes.
Raja Imran, 25, also a Peshawar resident, said, “There is total chaos across the country … There are exams going on and school children will suffer”.
Khan was ousted as prime minister in April 2022 in a parliamentary no-confidence vote. He has not slowed his campaign against the ouster even though he was wounded in a November attack on his convoy as he led a protest march to Islamabad calling for snap general elections.
The corruption case is one of more than 100 registered against Khan since his ouster after four years in power. In most of the cases, Khan faces being barred from holding public office if convicted, with a national election scheduled for November.
“Imran Khan will have to face the law and if he is cleared he will be contesting elections and if he is found guilty he will have to face the consequences,” Iqbal, the minister, said.
Source: CNA
