March 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Pakistani government has declared a state of maximum alert in the country’s capital, Islamabad, in view of the imminent appearance of former Prime Minister Imran Jan in court to testify on a case of illicit enrichment, amid new clashes between the Police and his supporters during a search of the president’s residence in Lahore (Punjab) that has resulted in at least 20 arrests.
The authorities have declared section 144 in the capital, which suspends the right to assembly, and ordered the mass deployment of the security forces before the arrival of the ex-president’s convoy, which has been delayed after an accident during the journey in the one in which several vehicles of the entourage have been involved, which has not left any serious injuries without the exact reasons being known so far.
Jan’s appearance has not yet begun despite the fact that regular court hours have ended, also because the entourage has been held up for several minutes at an intersection near the Islamabad Judicial Complex, where the hearing will be held.
The Pakistani media regulatory authority, PEMRA, has banned live coverage of the former prime minister’s arrival while all hospitals in the capital have gone into a state of emergency over the possibility of serious unrest.
Fawad Chaudhry, secretary general of the Movement for Justice in Pakistan, the former prime minister’s party, has denounced the chaotic situation that the capital is currently going through, plagued by traffic cuts and crowds. “This looks like the Gaza Strip”, he lamented on Twitter.
NEW MORNING OF CHAOS
The tensions began this morning when the agents complied with the order to search the former president’s home, issued yesterday by a court, using a crane to tear down the barricades installed by Jan’s supporters.
The search warrant was issued on Friday by the Lahore High Court as part of a new investigation into heavy clashes between his supporters and the Police on March 14 and 15, after a chaotic weekend in which the security forces unsuccessfully tried again to arrest the ex-president.
As soon as his convoy left, Jan has launched a message on social networks in which he has declared himself convinced that the Police will end up arresting him in one way or another during his stay in Islamabad.
As he has done on so many occasions, the former Pakistani prime minister has pointed to his political nemesis, also former head of government Nawaz Sharif, as responsible for his hardships. “The Punjab Police have started an assault on my house while (his wife) Bushra is alone. Under what law are they doing that?” Jan protested through his Twitter account.
The former prime minister has declared that “this is all part of the London Plan”, the city where Sharif now lives while appealing a sentence against him for corruption, “where Nawaz the fugitive hopes to return to power.” In a previous video, Jan assured: “I will appear in court knowing that they are going to arrest me, all because I believe in the rule of law,” reports the newspaper ‘Dawn’.
In the so-called Toshakhana process, Jan has been accused of concealing in his declarations of assets details about some of the gifts he received during his time as prime minister between 2018 and 2022, when he was dismissed through a motion of no confidence in Parliament, at the start of a merciless battle between the former prime minister and the authorities that now govern the country.
This Saturday the term given by an Islamabad court to arrest Jan for refusing to appear at previous hearings on this case theoretically expires, but the former prime minister’s legal team is convinced that his attendance this Saturday is in full compliance. of the court order.
In any case, the Toshakhana is one of the dozens of cases opened against Jan, some of them for possible crimes of “terrorism” due to constant threats against the country’s current authorities, whom he considers complicit in his fall from grace, relative given the immense convening power that the former cricket star continues to enjoy.
