Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: A day after his arrest triggered unprecedented violence and arson across Pakistan, which claimed at least one life and injured many, a court on Wednesday indicted former Prime Minister Imran Khan in the Toshakhana case, and ordered his non-bailable arrest, throwing the restive South Asian country deeper into anarchy, bankruptcy, and even civil war.
Meanwhile, the government deployed the armed forces in Punjab, the stronghold of Imran Khan, as the province provides a large chunk of manpower in the Pakistan Army, police, and paramilitary forces like Pakistan Rangers. Another Khan bastion, Khaibar-Pakhtunkhwa, also requested the deployment of the army.
Since his arrest on Tuesday, violence and arson broke out across Pakistan with Imran Khan’s supporters attacking, ransacking, and setting afire even the Army Core Commander’s residence in Lahore. They also stormed the Pakistan Army headquarters in Rawalpindi, with a large number of angry women also joining the violent mobs.
Similar scenes were witnessed in Karachi, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Quetta, Peshawar, and other cities where irate mobs torched police check posts and attacked all those they saw in uniforms.
The media reported that Khan was arrested from outside the Islamabad High Court in the Al-Qadir Trust case in which Khan and his wife have been accused of receiving “billions of rupees from a real estate firm for legalizing a laundered amount of Rs 50 billion.”
Over 120 cases have been filed against him after the Shehbaz Sharif government succeeded him in April 2022.
In August 2022, the coalition government — led by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) —filed a case against Khan, claiming that he didn’t disclose information on gifts presented to Toshakhana and the proceeds from the “illegal” sale of some of the gifts.
During the hearing on Wednesday, the court, held at Islamabad Police Lines for security reasons, reserved its verdict on the National Accountability Bureau (NAB)’s plea which had sought 14-day physical remand of Khan in the Al-Qadir Trust case.
Dawn reported that amid unprecedented unrest, the mobs attacked the Radio Pakistan building in Peshawar on Wednesday.
The Punjab Police said over 130 policemen, including officers, were injured in clashes with Imran Khan’s supporters who torched over two dozen police vehicles and many private vehicles, shops, and establishments. More than 14 government buildings were looted and gutted after Khan’s arrest.
The impact of countrywide anarchy was seen immediately on the tottering markets in Pakistan which may default any day.
On Wednesday, the Pakistani rupee fell 1.3 percent to a record low of 288.5 against the US dollar, a day after former PM the anti-corruption agency in Islamabad arrested Imran Khan.
Pakistan’s international bonds nudged lower with the 2024 issue down 0.4 cents on the dollar, according to Tradeweb data.
The bonds trade at deeply distressed levels between 49 cents on the dollar for shorter-dated maturities while longer-dated ones changed hand at around 33 cents.