People offer funeral prayers for the police officers who were killed in the overnight suicide bombing at a security post in Fatah Khel, in Bannu, a district in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.
| Photo Credit: AP

Supporters of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan block a highway, during a protest against his arrest, in Karachi, Pakistan May 9, 2023. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.S., UK and EU criticized Pakistan’s military courts on Monday (December 24, 2024) over the sentencing of 25 civilians in connection with attacks on military facilities in 2023 after the arrest of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The civilians were sentenced by a Pakistani military court to periods of two to 10 years in a ruling that underscored concerns among Khan’s supporters that military courts will play a bigger role in cases related to the former leader.

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Washington “is deeply concerned that Pakistani civilians have been sentenced by a military tribunal for their involvement in protests on May 9, 2023,” the U.S. State Department said.

The British government’s foreign office added that “trying civilians in military courts lacks transparency, independent scrutiny and undermines the right to a fair trial.”

The European Union said the sentences were “inconsistent with the obligations that Pakistan has undertaken under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

Khan supporters attacked military installations to protest his arrest by paramilitary soldiers.

The ruling on Saturday came days after Khan was indicted by an anti-terrorism court. After his arrest in May 2023, Khan was briefly released before being arrested again in August that year and he has since been in jail.

He has faced dozens of cases since he was removed as prime minister in 2022, after which he launched a protest movement against a coalition of his rivals led by current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Khan says cases against him, which disqualified him from contesting the 2024 elections, are politically motivated. He had a fallout with Pakistan’s military that he blames for his ouster.

Candidates whom Khan backed secured the highest number of seats in the elections. However, his rivals formed a coalition government. A U.N. human rights working group has said Khan’s detention violates international law.

The military denies political interference. Pakistan’s government denies being unfair in the treatment of Khan or his supporters. The Pakistani embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.

Islamabad:

Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar on Saturday said that the man seen in a viral video falling from a container during a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) protest in Islamabad is “completely fine.”

Speaking to the media, Tarar said that the man sustained minor injuries in the incident, as reported by Dawn.

The viral video, shot during a protest at Islamabad’s D-Chowk, shows men, dressed as security personnel with riot gear, pushing a man off a stack of three shipping containers.

The PTI supporters were demanding the release of their leader and party chief, Imran Khan.

The protests turned violent on November 26, and PTI supporters were met with intense tear gas shelling by security forces.

According to Dawn, a photographer captured a picture showing a man hanging off the edge of a container while men in uniform stood above him.

A video of the incident also went viral, sparking various claims on social media, with some posts alleging that the man had died.

Pakistani police throw man from three-story-high stack of shipping containers while he is praying pic.twitter.com/vjaVXza4Vb

— Bad Cops (@CopsGoneWrong) November 27, 2024

Refuting these claims, Minister Tarar said, “Propaganda was spread that a person offering prayers was killed by being pushed down. He is a resident of Mandi Bahauddin and is completely fine. His video has emerged; he sustained an arm injury and has bandages.”

Tarar further claimed that the man was recording a TikTok video as part of a challenge with a friend and was not offering prayers at the time, as reported by Dawn.

Earlier, Awami National Party (ANP) President Aimal Wali Khan called for a ban on political parties that incite violence, including PTI, Dawn reported.

Speaking at a press conference alongside Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi at the ANP central secretariat in Wali Bagh on Friday, Khan said that PTI has been working in an undemocratic and nonpolitical manner since its formation and it has always encouraged people to behave in a violent manner.

He labelled PTI as “waste that should be disposed of” and said that the state had imposed PTI on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the past 12 years but such decisions did not give good results, as reported by Dawn report.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Policemen stand guard beside torched vehicles during a demonstration to condemn the alleged rape of a female student in Lahore on October 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Senior directors of a Pakistan college said on Wednesday there was no evidence that a student had been raped on campus after reports that spread online sparked days of protests.

Hundreds of students have protested since Monday in response to social media posts that said a woman was raped in the basement of a Punjab College for Women campus in the eastern city of Lahore.

The demonstrators, who were mostly male students, smashed windows and burned school buses.

The protests reflect growing concern over safety, harassment and sexual violence in Pakistan.

“The incident does not exist. I will resign and I will leave this profession and stand with the students if the incident took place,” Arif Chaudry, the Lahore director of the private Punjab Group of Colleges that runs the women’s college, told reporters.

Agha Tahir Ijaz, another of the group’s directors, told the same news conference: “We want the kids to understand that they should not believe misinformation.”

Police arrested a security guard who was identified in online posts but said no victim had come forward and that they had not been able to verify the incident.

The protests first erupted at two of the college’s campuses on Monday afternoon before spreading to several other colleges around the city and continued on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The college campus where the alleged rape was said to happen has been shut down by the provincial Punjab government until further notice.

The chief minister of the province, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, said that those who spread the false posts would be punished.

Supporters of Pakistan’s Former Prime Minister Imran Khan chant slogans during a protest against the Pakistan Election Commission, in Karachi, Pakistan, on March 2, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on March 5 announced that it will launch nationwide protests on March 10 against the “stealing” of the mandate, nearly a month after an inconclusive general election marred by allegations of vote rigging.

“We will unite all political forces and will launch a movement within the law and Constitution,” said former National Assembly speaker and senior PTI leader Asad Qaiser while speaking to the media here.

He said that they are planning to take to the streets in all provinces so their demands are met, Geo News reported.

“Our movement will continue and will bring together all political forces,” he said, adding that they will ally with like-minded parties.

The February 8 general election, marred by allegations of widespread rigging, in Pakistan, resulted in a hung Parliament with independent candidates backed by Imran Khan’s party winning more than 90 seats at the 266-member National Assembly. Ex-premier Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N bagged 75 seats and former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto’s PPP got 54 seats. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) won 17 seats.

Mr. Nawaz’s younger brother Shehbaz Sharif was sworn in as Prime Minister on March 4, days after his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Peoples Party agreed on a power-sharing deal to form a coalition government.

Mr. Qaiser said that they would protest peacefully as they don’t believe in the Mr. Shehbaz Sharif-led “fake government”.

“You have no respect for our mandate and the 30 million votes we got,” he said, adding that “180 seats” have been stolen from the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC), the party joined by PTI-backed lawmakers.

Also Read | Pakistan’s Foreign Office dismisses U.S. ‘directions’ on probing alleged election rigging

A five-member panel of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on March 4 ruled against a petition by the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) to allot it reserved seats for women and minorities in the national and provincial assemblies. The right wing party came to prominence after independent lawmakers elected with the support of PTI joined it.

“A fake Prime Minister is sitting on the seat right now. And how can a fake PM take this country out of crisis?” Mr. Qaiser questioned.

“We don’t consider Shehbaz Sharif a legitimate Prime Minister in any capacity. He knows he’s fake,” Mr. Qaiser said. “I am scared to think how this country will survive. God forbid there’s a revolution in this country,” he added.

PTI lawmaker Umair Niazi said that party founder Imran Khan has decided to call for countrywide protests on March 10, Dawn newspaper reported.

Speaking to reporters outside the Adiala Jail, Mr. Niazi, in an apparent reference to the ECP’s verdict on reserved seats, said this decision has “stolen the rights of the women” of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“Khan sahib has said that we will not let this happen. This is why — he had said of Saturday but then he said there are presidential elections on that day — he said to [hold protests] on Sunday,” Mr. Niazi added.

In a post on X, PTI leader Hammad Azhar later said, “There will be a peaceful but strong protest on Sunday. Everyone should be ready.” The party’s official account confirmed the same.

Imran Khan’s sister Aleema Khan said that the PTI founder supports reconciliation, but not with those who “stole” the party’s votes. “If you want to hold dialogue with thieves then it will be better to open the doors of jail,” she said.