Former Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks during the Pakistan-Sri Lanka Trade and Investment Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in February 2021. His supporters broke through barriers in Islamabad on Tuesday to demand his freedom. File Photo by Chamila Karumarathne/EPA-EFE
Nov. 26 (UPI) — Thousands of demonstrators supporting former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan broke through barricades around the capital of Islamabad on Tuesday, killing four security service members and moving toward the center of the city.
The roadblocks, which did little to deter protesters, were created by the government before Khan demonstrators reached the city in hopes of slowing them down. The supporters are demanding the release of the former prime minister, who has been jailed for more than a year for fraud and other crimes.
“It is not a peaceful protest,” current Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said, according to NBC News. “It is extremism.”
Pakistan’s interior ministry said a convoy of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party protester vehicles rolled through government barricades and ran over paramilitary officers.
Khan’s wife, Bushra Bibi, and the chief minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Ali Amin Gandapur, continued to lead the march as protesters moved to the so-called “Red Zone,” where many of the country’s institutions are situated.
Security forces have fired live rounds and tear gas at marchers who managed to reach the protected Red Zone near government buildings. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said more than 4,000 demonstrators had been arrested under an emergency constitutional law that was invoked.
Officials said protesters appeared to fall back and slow their march in the wave of military tear gas. Some injuries were reported among demonstrators, but no figures of how many have been revealed.