PAKISTAN | Lahore braces as 1 million gather for opposition protest

Pakistan’s cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, centre

Pakistan opposition leader Imran Khan was seeking to rally 1 million people yesterday for a march from Lahore to the capital to oust Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over fraud allegations in an election 15 months ago.
Police blocked roads and cut mobile-phone service ahead of the rally, the biggest challenge to Sharif since he took power. The march was to start around mid-day, Shahid Mursaleen, a spokesman for cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, who is also helping lead the march, said in an e-mail.
Any unrest threatens to destabilize Sharif’s government as it seeks to revive Pakistan’s economy and end a Taliban insurgency that has killed more than 55,000 people since 2001. Stocks and the rupee have fallen this week on concerns that the protest will turn violent or trigger a coup.
Some 18,000 law enforcement officials will be on duty, according to Sultan Azam Temuri, a spokesman for Islamabad police. About half were scheduled to be police officers and paramilitary troops from other provinces, he said.
Gunmen may attack during the rally, Rana Mashhood, a law minister in Sharif’s home province of Punjab, told reporters Wednesday, citing intelligence reports. Authorities in Islamabad blocked roads with containers, barbed wire and large craters to deter demonstrators.
Sharif this week appointed a commission to probe fraud claims while saying he would serve out his five-year term. Khan, a former cricket star whose party controls about a tenth of parliamentary seats, has said election authorities unjustly dismissed his complaints of fraud in last year’s vote. He has rejected Sharif’s plans for an investigation.
“Protest is the only option after our election rigging claims were rejected,” Khan told reporters in Lahore on Aug. 12. “Sharif knows the art of corruption. He needs to resign.” Bloomberg

Khurrum Anis
and Faseeh Mangi