the ex-Prime Minister was placed in pre-trial detention, his arrest provokes riots

The former Pakistani Prime Minister was placed in pre-trial detention on Wednesday May 10 for a corruption case, the day after his arrest which sparked riots causing the dispatch of soldiers to Punjab. “The court approved the remand of Imran Khan for a period of eight days”said Ali Bukhari, one of his lawyers, after the closed-door hearing.

The government has also given the green light to the deployment of soldiers in the province of Punjab, the most populous in the country, where nearly 1,000 demonstrators have been arrested and 130 police officers injured since the start of the demonstrations on Tuesday. The order issued by the Interior Ministry does not specify the date or duration of the deployment requested by the provincial government, nor the number of soldiers.

Schools closed and roads blocked

Violent clashes erupted between supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the party of Imran Khan, and the police following the announcement of the arrest of the former Prime Minister. Protesters broke into the residence of the military commander in Lahore, a city in the east of the country, and blocked the entrance gates of the army headquarters in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.

Schools were closed across the country on Wednesday and access to social media such as Twitter and Facebook was restricted by authorities. By noon, protesters had blocked some roads leading to Islamabad. Large security forces were mobilized in the capital outside the police building where the special court met to retry the former prime minister.

Imran Khan was removed from his post as head of government in April 2022, after losing the support of the army and the vote of a motion of no confidence against him. The target of several dozen court cases, he pushed for the organization of early elections before the October deadline, in the hope of returning to power. In vain.