Ousted Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested in Pakistan by paramilitary troops on May 9 for alleged involvement in a corruption case. The former cricket star’s dramatic arrest by the police, who stormed into a courthouse in Islamabad to detain him, is the political crisis in the nuclear-armed nation which is also in the throes of an economic crisis. Soon after Imran Khan’s arrest, protests broke out across Pakistan, including Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi, Gilgit and Karak.
Islamabad Police said in a statement that Imran Khan had been arrested for receiving 5 billion rupees and land for legalising a laundered amount, which caused a loss to the national exchequer when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government was in power. He was held on charges levelled by the National Accountability Bureau, Pakistan’s anti-corruption agency.
Paramilitary forces broke a window to apprehend Khan even as he submitted his biometric data for a court appearance. The former Pak PM watched impassively as the police attempted to get to him, beating lawyers and his security staff.
Just a day before his arrest, the former Pakistan PM had accused the Pakistan Army of conspiring to kill him. Khan said he had been arrested on false charges in a pre-recorded video released by his party on YouTube after his arrest.
“By the time you will receive these words of mine, I will have been detained on incorrect charges, Pakistan constitution, which gives us rights, which gives us democracy, has been buried. Perhaps I won’t get the opportunity to speak to you again,” he said, appealing to his supporters to stand for their fundamental rights.
PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry said Imran Khan had been abducted and “whisked away by unknown people to an unknown location.”
Imran Khan has been embroiled in controversy since his ouster a year back and is facing 121 cases across Pakistan, including treason and blasphemy and inciting violence and terrorism cases.
The police has made several unsuccessful attempts to arrest Imran Khan- he has managed to evade every time.
Two months before Imran Khan’s arrest, his supporters had protested outside his residence in Lahore over a non-bailable arrest warrant issued against the former cricketer charging him with corruption related to the Toshakhana case. The case pertains to Khan receiving gifts from Arab rulers when in power. It was alleged that he bought the gifts at cheap prices from the Toshakhana department and sold them at exorbitant rates. On March 5, the police raided one of his residences in Lahore, arresting dozens of PTI workers and claiming to have seized weapons and petrol bombs. The arrest warrant against Khan was cancelled after clashes between police and PTI workers and the ensuing chaos.
Imran Khan came to power with a majority in 2018. However, he was ousted in 2022 after a parliamentary no-confidence motion for alleged rigging.
He led two marches in May and October, protesting his removal and became popular among his supporters.
The stand-off with the government worsened in November when he escaped an assassination attempt during a public event in Wazirabad district of north-eastern Punjab. He accused current Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and the army commander over the incident.
Beginning of the end
Imran Khan Khan and the military were “all on one page”- the former PM’s own words- when he came to power in 2018. Two years later, the cricketer-turned-politician was criticised for failing to tackle the country’s economic crisis and mishandling the Covid pandemic. By 2021, the government had lost public support. The rift with the Army began in October the same year over the appointment of a new ISI chief- a new man, Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum, was appointed in place of incumbent Lt Gen Faiz Hameed in November 2021 against Imran Khan’s wishes. His relationship with the military continued to worsen. By the beginning of November 2022, Khan had become more and more vocal against the military.
In April 2022, Khan lost power after a no-confidence motion. PML-N’s Shehbaz Sharif replaced him. Imran Khan accused the USA of orchestrating a coup against him. He demanded snap elections, saying that he had been wronged. His rallies attracted huge crowds. Support for him increased.
He was disqualified by Pakistan’s election commission from running for political office for five years over “corrupt practices”.
He suffered an assassination attempt shortly after the election commission’s decision, which further increased popular support for him. In November 2022, he suffered bullet injuries in the leg after gunmen fired at him in a rally in which he was advocating snap elections in Pakistan.
In March this year, Pakistan’s media regulator banned television channels from broadcasting speeches and news conferences by the former PM.
He lost the legal battle after his bail pleas were rejected, leading to his arrest.
