Sept 25 (Reuters) – Jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has postponed a planned long march from Peshawar to Islamabad until October 4, the chief minister of the PTI-ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Sohail Afridi, told reporters on Friday.
• PTI had planned to begin the march on September 27 to press for the release of Khan, who has been in jail since 2023. The PTI’s last large-scale protest two years ago ended in deadly clashes with security forces.
• Earlier this week, Pakistan curbed access to its capital, Islamabad, by blocking major highways with shipping containers and deploying tens of thousands of security forces, ahead of the march planned by Khan’s supporters.
• Party spokesperson Zulfi Bukhari, however, told Reuters that although they had moved the planned date to October 4, they could launch the march earlier.
• “We can now do it whenever we deem fit. The question is to the government, as to how long they’re willing to keep the country closed off?”, Bukhari said.
• Authorities have detained three of Khan’s sisters and hundreds of party activists in recent days, citing a need to maintain public order.
• Khan, 73, a former cricket star ousted by parliament in a 2022 no-confidence vote, has claimed to be a political prisoner.
(Reporting by Islamabad bureau; Writing by Kanjyik Ghosh; Editing by Toby Chopra and Louise Heavens)
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