Pakistan arrests over 200 activists as they rally to support former leader Imran Khan

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LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Police arrested more than 200 supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday as they tried to hold rallies in cities throughout Pakistan to mark the second anniversary of Khan’s arrest, a party spokesman and officials said.

The detainees included Rehana Dar, 73, a politician from Khan’s party known for her fiery speeches against the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. She was seen being thrown into a police truck in the northeastern city of Lahore.

Zulfiqar Bukhari, a spokesman for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, or PTI, said police used batons and fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators in Lahore and the southern provincial capital of Karachi.

He said their party had planned peaceful rallies to denounce Khan’s incarceration and demand justice for him. But the government responded by imposing a ban on gatherings in the capital, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi, where Khan is imprisoned following convictions in multiple cases against him that supporters say were politically motivated.

Many of the 200 arrests were in Rawalpindi, where supporters presumably were detained for violating the ban. Many of the other arrests were in Lahore, though it was unclear on what grounds.

The crackdown on PTI supporters came hours after Pakistan’s election oversight body disqualified opposition leader Omar Ayub Khan and several other PTI lawmakers following their convictions over their alleged role in riots that broke out in May 2023 after Khan’s initial arrest in a corruption case.

Khan was ousted from office in April 2022 through a no-confidence vote spearheaded by Sharif, the then-opposition leader and current prime minister.