The motorway linking Pakistan’s capital with Peshawar, about 180km (110 miles) to the northwest, has been closed to all traffic until further notice, according to a police notification.
uncertain
motorway → link → notification
So have the highway towards Dera Ismail Khan, the Hazara motorway and the Grand Trunk Road at Attock.
asserted
highway → have → Attock
Recommended Stories
list of 4 items- list 1 of 4Pakistan ex-PM Imran Khan’s family accuses gov’t of defying hospital order
- list 2 of 4‘Where’s the humanity?’: Imran Khan’s sons fear for jailed ex-Pakistan PM
- list 3 of
asserted
sons → accuse → PM
Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s sisters arrested before planned PTI march
asserted
sisters → arrest → march
- list 4 of 4Pakistan seals roads to Islamabad before protests for Imran Khan’s release
Each carries traffic between Islamabad and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province governed by the party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, whose supporters plan to march on the capital on Sunday, September 27, demanding his release.
asserted
supporters → seal → release
The motorway from Lahore, about 375km (235 miles) to the southeast, remains open.
asserted
motorway → remain → southeast
Inside Islamabad, workers have welded shipping containers together and filled them with gravel and sand so they cannot be pushed aside.
asserted
they → weld → gravel
Several schools and colleges have been told to shut so police brought in from Punjab and Sindh can be housed there.
asserted
police → tell → Punjab
Police expect the march to draw between 20,000 and 25,000 people, according to local media reports.
uncertain
march → expect → reports
While two of the country’s main opposition parties announced marches on the capital this month, only Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has faced measures on this scale.
asserted
Insaf → announce → scale
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), a religious party, also set out for Islamabad last week to protest against rising fuel prices.
asserted
Islami → set → prices
On Monday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif telephoned its leader, Hafiz Naeemur Rehman, and by Tuesday afternoon JI had postponed its march, pending a meeting between the two men.
asserted
JI → telephone → men
PTI leaders have received no such call.
asserted
leaders → receive → call
Instead, Khan’s three sisters, all over the age of 65, have been detained in Lahore and at least six of the party’s legislators in Islamabad, all under a 1960 public order law that allows preventive detention without charge.
asserted
that → detain → charge
PTI says the true figure of those arrested is higher, and that one lawmaker taken from the parliament lodges has not been traced since.
asserted
lawmaker → say → lodges
Khan has been in prison since August 2023 and remains Pakistan’s most prominent opposition figure.
asserted
Khan → remain → August
But his party enters the final stretch before the protest weakened, with no major demonstration outside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since November 2024, by its own account.
asserted
protest → enter → account
Yet, say analysts, the Pakistani government appears to be treating the protest march as a far bigger threat than a regular political event would warrant.
asserted
event → say → threat
“While this is undoubtedly a difficult moment for PTI, it is equally exposing the government’s own frustration,” Habib Akram, a Lahore-based political analyst, told Al Jazeera.
asserted
Akram → expose → Jazeera
“In fact, the government’s conduct suggests something more.
uncertain
conduct → suggest → something
It isn’t just afraid of this protest; it has turned this protest into a matter of its own survival.”
A capital behind containers
More than 2,000 containers have been placed across Islamabad and at Attock Bridge, the main crossing between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, according to media reports, with 19,000 police officers on their way from Punjab and Sindh, and thousands more deployed at Attock.
Dawn, the country’s leading English-language newspaper, said in an editorial that the government appeared to be preparing “not for a political event but an invasion”.
uncertain
government → turn → event
Talal Chaudhry, the junior interior minister, rejected the suggestion that the government was shutting down the capital itself.
asserted
government → reject → capital
“Normal life in Islamabad is continuing.
asserted
life → continue → Islamabad
Hospitals, offices and essential services are functioning.
asserted
Hospitals → function → ?
The containers and security arrangements are precautionary measures, not a shutdown,” he told Al Jazeera.
asserted
he → tell → Jazeera
“In trying to counter the rhetoric PTI has adopted, we do have to take certain measures, and yes, those measures carry their own consequences too, but we have to look at the bigger picture,” he told Al Jazeera.
asserted
he → try → Jazeera
It is all being mounted during one of the deadliest weeks for Pakistan’s security forces this year.
asserted
It → mount → forces
An attack on a police compound in Kohat, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killed more than 20 people on September 18, and six soldiers were killed in a gunfight in nearby Hangu two days later.
asserted
soldiers → kill → Hangu
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi set those losses against the march in Lahore on Monday.
asserted
Naqvi → set → Monday
Our captain was killed, our soldiers were killed, our policemen were killed, and these people are preparing to storm a city,” he said.
asserted
he → kill → city
The government’s case
Government ministers have seized on a remark by Junaid Akbar, PTI’s chief in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who said protesters would turn Islamabad into Somnath, a Hindu temple in India sacked by Mehmood of Ghazni, an 11th-century invader, to try to paint the upcoming protest as a major law and order threat.
asserted
protesters → seize → threat
“Peaceful people do not leave their homes carrying nail-studded sticks,” Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in Kohat on Monday.
asserted
Tarar → leave → Monday
But the PTI’s Sohail Afridi, the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who will lead the September 27 march, answered Tarar in Peshawar on Monday.
“We will go there on nothing but two hands and two feet.
asserted
We → lead → hands
There will be nothing else in our hands,” he said.
asserted
he → say → hands
In a September 18 judgement, the Islamabad High Court ruled that no party could block roads into the capital, and barred provincial governments from using state resources for the march.
uncertain
party → rule → march
Days later came the arrests of Imran Khan’s sisters.
asserted
arrests → come → sisters
Aleema Khan was detained in Lahore on Sunday, and her sisters, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi, were taken in a predawn raid on their homes the next day, according to a family statement on September 22.
uncertain
sisters → detain → September
The Lahore High Court has reserved its decision on whether a petition challenging Aleema’s detention is admissible, after the family’s lawyer argued that the order was issued after the arrest.
asserted
order → reserve → arrest
Chaudhry said the sisters faced several cases, had led confrontational protests in the past, and were being held as a preventive measure.
asserted
sisters → say → measure
PTI says the arrests reach far wider, listing five members of the National Assembly, a senator, provincial legislators and more than 1,500 workers.
asserted
arrests → say → Assembly
…and 32 more, not listed.
The Aporia
