Pakistan seals roads to Islamabad before protests for Imran Khan’s release

Police close major highways into Islamabad as supporters of the jailed former prime minister plan to march into the capital.Authorities in Pakistan have begun sealing off the main roads into the country’s capital, Islamabad, to block supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan from reaching the city.Police in Islamabad said on Wednesday that the Islamabad-peshawar-motorway" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="208370" data-entity-type="location">Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway, the Islamabad-dera-ismail-khan-motorway" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="208371" data-entity-type="location">Islamabad-Dera Ismail Khan Motorway and the Grand Trunk Road would be closed at several points starting in the evening. They urged the public to plan travel accordingly.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s sisters arrested before planned PTI marchlist 2 of 3Iran’s Pezeshkian meets Pakistan’s Naqvi in Tehran as tensions with US riselist 3 of 3Afghanistan says three killed in Pakistani air attacksend of listDawn, a leading Pakistani newspaper, reported that the closures were indefinite and aimed at preventing supporters of Khan’s party, Pakistan-tehreek-e-insaf" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="6795" data-entity-type="organization">Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), from marching to the capital on September 27.The protesters are demanding the release of Khan, who has been jailed since August 2023 following a series of convictions that his party calls politically motivated. All but one have since been suspended or overturned on appeal.Concerns about his health, in particular the condition of his right eye, which has required months of specialist treatment, have prompted the party’s campaign for his release.The marches were expected to set out for Islamabad from Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, about 1,150km (715 miles) to the southwest, and from Lahore, about 270km (170 miles) to the southeast.The authorities have placed about 2,000 shipping containers around the capital and at Attock Bridge, a crossing from the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dawn reported. Containers and sandbags have also been placed at Haroon Bridge, the other key crossing between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, and nearly 30,000 security personnel have been deployed in the Attock district, it added.Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said that the government had told “the Pakistan-tehreek-e-insaf" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="6795" data-entity-type="organization">Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to reconsider its plans”.