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Wire
The capital police in Pakistan requested PKR 820 million for a week of security against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) march on Islamabad, an amount that would cover the rent of shipping containers, accommodation and meals for police personnel arriving from Punjab and Sindh. According to Dawn, citing police sources, postponing the march to October 4 would effectively double the amount and would likely cost more than PKR 1 billion.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) postponed to October 4 the march that would set out from Peshawar toward Islamabad, previously scheduled for September 27. The announcement was made by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, who said the party’s political committee “unanimously agreed” to the new date. The march presses for the release of Imran Khan, jailed since 2023, according to Reuters.
Pakistani authorities closed the main highways into Islamabad and placed about 2,000 shipping containers around the capital and at Attock Bridge, a crossing from the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan plan to march into the capital, according to Al Jazeera. Tens of thousands of police were deployed and roads were barricaded, according to The Guardian.
Pakistan’s government fortified more than 1,000 shipping containers with spikes, placed sandbags on bridges and closed the highway linking Peshawar to Islamabad, deploying 22,000 police and other security personnel across the capital, according to The Guardian. The leadership of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) decided to postpone the march planned for September 27: it will now set out from Peshawar for the capital on October 4, according to Dawn. The PTI ties the march to concessions over the treatment of Khan, in jail since 2023, and says he is held in solitary confinement, denied adequate medical care and kept from his family and lawyers for months, according to The Guardian.
Qasim Khan, son of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, urged the public not to march or protest near Adiala Jail on September 27, according to UrduPoint. He said the protest could serve as a pretext for a “counter-operation” inside the prison, putting his father’s life at risk, according to Republic World.