ISLAMABAD: A case has been registered against 150 people, including Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MP Ghulam Sarwar Khan, at Golra police station in Islamabad.
The case was registered by Islamabad police on charges of manhandling its force and hurling death threats at them.
“The convoy led by Ghulam Sarwar hurled death threats at police […] at the behest of Imran Khan, Pervez Khattak and Shah Mehmood Qureshi,” read the FIR.
The police fired teargas, baton-charged and detained supporters of the former prime minister to stop them from reaching Islamabad to demand fresh elections, witnesses said.
Clashes between Khan’s supporters and activists and police were reported in multiple cities, including Lahore.
Live TV footage showed police fighting with Khan’s supporters, beating them and in some places breaking their vehicles’ windscreens and bundling them into police vans.
Such practices have helped make the police “one of the most widely feared, complained against, and least trusted government institutions in Pakistan”, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.
Minister for Interior Rana Sanaullah Khan later said police had carried out a total of 4,417 swoops on Khan supporters’ homes, offices and on protest rallies and had arrested nearly 1,700 people. Of those, 250 were later freed, he said.
