Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the arrest of former prime minister Imran Khan, which sparked violent protests by his supporters across the country.
“Your arrest is invalid and the whole process needs to be reviewed,” said Umar Ata Bandial, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who was considering an appeal filed by Mr Khan’s lawyers against his arrest on Tuesday in a corruption case.
“From now on, no arrest should take place on the premises of a court”, justified Judge Bandial.
Mr Khan, 70, who was ousted in April 2022 but remains popular and hopes to return to power soon, was arrested while responding to a court summons in the case.
“I was treated like a terrorist,” said Mr. Khan, who was then placed in pre-trial detention on Wednesday.
The culmination of months of political crisis that saw the former cricketer star increasingly openly defy the all-powerful military, his arrest has sparked anger among his supporters.
Thousands of supporters of his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, Pakistan Justice Movement), demonstrated for two days, setting fire to or damaging public buildings.
Rarely in Pakistan, they attacked symbols of military power, accusing the army of having contributed to the ousting of Mr. Khan from power, which the latter disputes.
At least nine people have died in incidents linked to the protests, which were violently suppressed by security forces, according to police and hospitals.
Worsening of the crisis
Hundreds of police were injured and more than 2,000 protesters arrested, mostly in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, police said.
The latter arrested people on their way to a demonstration in Karachi on Thursday and beat handcuffed PTI supporters in Islamabad, AFP journalists noted.
“If they think that the arrest of Imran Khan will demoralize us, they are seriously mistaken,” said one of his supporters, Niaz Ali, in Peshawar. “We stand with Imran Khan and we will support him until death,” he added.
At least eight senior PTI officials accused of orchestrating the violence have been detained, police said.
The government gave the green light on Wednesday to send soldiers to the capital and two provinces, including Punjab, the most populous in Pakistan, to restore calm.
Islamabad police said on Thursday that troops had been positioned overnight in the capital’s “red zone”, which houses key government institutions.
Authorities have cut off mobile internet, restricted access to social networks such as Twitter, Facebook or YouTube, and ordered the closure of schools across the country.
“People should demonstrate, but that doesn’t mean besieging, burning or damaging government properties, or attacking the poor by burning their cars or motorbikes,” said Peshawar resident Syed Muzaffar Shah. .
Mr Khan’s arrest marks a dramatic worsening of a crisis that has been brewing since his overthrow. He was dismissed by a motion of no confidence, after losing the support of the army, which had backed him up when he came to power in 2018.
“Extreme Restraint”
Mr. Khan then multiplied political maneuvers to obtain the holding of early elections before the October deadline, in a country in the grip of a serious economic crisis.
He also launched into increasingly virulent diatribes against his successor, Shehbaz Sharif, and the military establishment.
The military wields considerable political influence in Pakistan. It has staged at least three coups since independence in 1947 and held power for more than three decades.
But direct criticism against him is rare, because it is considered a red line not to be crossed, at the risk of finding himself in the sights of the security apparatus.
Mr Khan is the subject of dozens of court cases, which he denounces as an attempt by the government and the army to prevent his return to power.
His arrest came shortly after he renewed his charges over the weekend against a senior military officer, whom he accuses of plotting to assassinate him in November during an election rally where he had been shot in the leg.
He did not provide any evidence for his allegations, which were denounced as “fabricated and malicious” by the army. On Wednesday, she warned that she had so far held to “extreme restraint”. She threatened a “strong reaction” to anyone attacking military and government installations.