Thousands on the March in Pakistan Demanding Release of Jailed Former Prime Minister and Cricket Star Imran Khan

About 5,000 supporters of Pakistan’s imprisoned former prime minister, Imran Khan, are bearing down on the capital of Islamabad demanding his release after three years’ imprisonment. A violent showdown is feared as the marchers get near the capital, which Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, has locked down.With huge container trucks blocking the main routes into Islamabad, the marchers will have to turn back or go on staging rallies led by the political party that Mr. Khan founded after his career as one of the world’s greatest cricket players.They could, of course, simply return quietly to their homes in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, under the thumb of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party that Mr. Khan founded 30 years ago. Mr. Khan, 74, remains such a populist, compelling figure from his days as a cricket star, however, that a non-violent solution appears difficult if not unlikely.With much of the country cheering his entry into politics as a fresh voice after his spectacular success captaining Pakistan’s cricketers to championships over once superior rivals, Mr. Khan’s party won just enough seats in parliament to elect him as prime minister in 2017 on a wave of revulsion over widespread corruption. Similar charges of corruption and malfeasance against him led to his ouster three years and nearly eight months later by a no-confidence vote of the same parliament.Mr. Khan’s troubles were just beginning, as the military-dominated government went after him, and then his wife, in a campaign led by the country’s defense chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, enforcing de facto military rule as always over civilian leadership. Mr. Khan discovered that he could not get away with attempting to assert civilian control .“Release Imran Khan,” say huge signs on the sides of tractor trailer trucks lumbering slowly southeast down 200 miles of roads from Peshawar to Islamabad as many more marchers trudge along on foot.On the way the marchers stop for rest and rallies. The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, 37-year-old Sohail Afridi, has called upon “the youngsters to come out, for the sake of your leader who is sitting in jail.” Finally, he has said, “This movement will have reached every corner of the country, and every square will have become a center of activity.”“In leading the protest march, Sohail Afridi has taken perhaps the biggest risk of his political career,” writes an editor of the national newspaper Dawn, Ismail Khan, no relation to Imran Khan. “When it comes time to pay the piper, he may yet find himself standing alone.” The question will be whether the march “attempts to force its way into Islamabad.”As the march nears the capital, Field Marshall Amir and Prime Minister Sharif will have to decide how to repress the marchers, what level of force to exercise in a country frequently upset by violence often driven by Islamic fanatics and local rivalries.Mr. Sharif is attempting to ease tensions, Dawn reported, by introducing a “relief scheme” for reducing the cost of fuel for motorcycles and small vehicles in order to “alleviate the burden” of high prices.Compromise appears unlikely, however, especially since the secretary general of the PTI, Salman Akram Raja, insists Mr. Khan have a seat at the table. “Only he has the capability to bridge the gulf that has developed between the state and the nation,” Reuters quoted him as saying.Incredibly, there was a time when the military was on his side.“Mr Khan rode to power with the backing of the armed forces, who had, as they periodically do in Pakistan, grown tired of the old ruling parties,” writes the Economist. “But he proved to be an erratic and often alarmingly messianic premier.” While serving a 14-year sentence “on a trumped-up corruption charge,” says the Economist, “his popularity has soared.”Adding to the emotional outrage surrounding his case, his two sons, Kasim and Sulaiman, worry about their father’s health. “He’s barely allowed outside of his cell,” Reuters quoted Sulaiman as saying, while authorities have ignored a court order for him to be treated at a hospital.“It’s a small, dark cell, extremely hot in the summer, with no kind of air conditioning or anything like that,” said Sulaiman “It’s a small, dark cell, extremely hot in the summer, with no kind of air conditioning or anything like that … He’s barely allowed outside of his cell,”

Thousands on the March in Pakistan Demanding Release of Jailed Former Prime Minister and Cricket Star Imran Khan

Thousands on the March in Pakistan Demanding Release of Jailed Former Prime Minister and Cricket Star Imran Khan

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