The government of Pakistan, one of the world’s nuclear powers, has asked the army to take to the streets to put an end to the unrest that broke out after the arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and other leaders of his party, Reuters reports.

At least 3 leaders of the Khan-led Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party were detained after the former prime minister’s arrest this Tuesday, one of them a former foreign minister in the Islamabad government.

Tensions remain high in the nuclear-armed country, with both police and paramilitary forces patrolling the streets of major cities on Thursday. Mobile data services remained suspended and offices and schools were closed in two of the country’s four main provinces.

Early Thursday, police in Islamabad said the army had arrived in the city after protesters stormed military buildings, ransacked the house of an army general in the city of Lahore and set fire to government buildings and other targets following Khan’s arrest by the anti-corruption agency. country.

At least five people were killed in the violence, which has exacerbated instability in the South Asian country as its 220 million people struggle to cope with the worst economic crisis in decades.

“Such a sight has not been seen for 75 years,” said the new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, in a televised address to the nation.

High-level violence and arrests in Pakistan

“People were taken hostage in their cars, patients were pulled out of ambulances and then those cars were set on fire,” Shehbaz Sharif charged.

Pakistani authorities on Wednesday arrested Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Islamabad’s former foreign minister and PTI vice-chairman early Thursday, according to a message on his Twitter page. Two other important leaders of the former ruling party, Asad Umar and Fawad Chaudhry, were arrested a day ago.

Fawad Chaudhry was detained outside the Islamabad High Court, where his party challenged Khan’s arrest, just minutes after he addressed reporters.

“There is a very real campaign against PTI trying to portray us as violent terror-mongers,” Qureshi’s Twitter page said. “The nation must continue peaceful protests wherever it can,” he added.

The federal government on Wednesday approved requests from two Pakistani provinces – Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, both electoral strongholds of Khan – and the capital Islamabad to deploy the military to restore order.

Police have arrested more than 1,650 protesters in Imran Khan’s home province of Punjab alone, according to a statement from the local police chief, who accused those detained of committing acts of violence.

In the southwestern city of Uetta, 80 members of Khan’s party were arrested.

Allegations of widespread corruption against Imran Khan

The former prime minister was charged on Wednesday in a separate corruption case to the one in which he was arrested on Tuesday and for which an arrest warrant was issued in his name earlier this month. In a new criminal trial, he is accused of illegally selling gifts that he received as head of state from 2018 to 2022.

Khan has barricaded himself in his home in Lahore since March to avoid arrest by prosecutors as he faces more than 100 corruption charges after he was ousted in a no-confidence vote last April.

Khan attempted to dissolve parliament ahead of a no-confidence vote in what many analysts saw as an attempted coup.

He has continued to be active on the political scene since being ousted from power as Pakistan holds general elections this November. However, a verdict in most of the cases brought against him will result in a ban on public office.

Last November, he was injured in an attack on his convoy while leading a protest in Islamabad calling for early elections.