Pakistani authorities deployed the army in the capital for two weeks on Friday as violent protesters supporting jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan clashed with police after being denied entry into the city.
The troops would guard Islamabad between October 5 and 17, an interior ministry statement said, as Pakistan prepared to host the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit later this month.
The Chinese Prime Minister, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, India’s Foreign Minister and several other leaders from Southeast and Central Asia were expected to participate in the meeting of the prominent regional bloc.
The summit is a rare international event in Pakistan after nearly two decades, a period in which the South Asian nuclear power has struggled with deadly violence orchestrated by Islamist militants.
“We won’t let anyone ruin that,” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said as he visited the city along with police chiefs.
Authorities deployed thousands of officers and paramilitary troops on Friday to seal off the capital and prevent Khan’s supporters from entering the city.
They blocked all entry points into Islamabad with shipping containers, closed schools and suspended mobile and internet services, leaving the capital’s streets deserted, while Khan called for new protests to demand his release.
Khan’s supporters braved obstacles to enter the city, but police fired tear gas to disperse the protests.
Several protesters were arrested and more than a dozen officers were injured when they were hit by stones thrown by Khan’s supporters, officials said.
More than 4,000 supporters, including hundreds of Afghan refugees, were arrested in overnight raids on the outskirts of Islamabad, a police spokesman told dpa.
Khan has been in prison for more than a year after being convicted of several charges.
Most of his supporters traveled to the capital from the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, which is ruled by his party.
“We will fire back if the police try to stop us from entering Islamabad,” warned Ali Amin Khan, the province’s prime minister, before heading to the capital at the head of the rally.
Experts said Khan’s party, by threatening police, set a dangerous precedent in a country already mired in violence by Islamist militants, Sunni sectarian groups targeting the Shiite minority and subnationalist rebels.
“It will be extremely threatening if any province takes up arms against federal authorities,” said security analyst Fida Khan.