(LAHORE) Pakistani riot police on Tuesday used water cannons to repel supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan, who were trying to stop officers from arresting him at his home.
Mr Khan was overthrown in April 2022 in a no-confidence motion and has since faced a host of legal proceedings, as he remains wildly popular and hopes to return to power in parliamentary elections scheduled by October.
This is the second time this month that police have been dispatched from the capital Islamabad to Mr Khan’s home in Lahore to execute a warrant for his arrest, after he evaded several court summonses , citing security concerns.
“We are just here to execute the arrest warrant and arrest him,” Shehzad Nadeem, a senior Islamabad police official, told reporters outside Mr Khan’s house.
The police were greeted at the home of the former head of government by at least 200 activists from his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, Pakistan Justice Movement), some of whom were brandishing sticks or throwing stones .
Police used water cannons to try to disperse the crowd and gain access to the building.
“The police came here to put me in jail,” Khan said, in a video recorded inside the house and posted on Twitter.
“They think the Nation will fall asleep when Imran Khan goes to jail,” he added.
PTI deputy leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters that his party wanted to remain “peaceful”.
Mr Khan, 70, was summoned to court to face charges that he failed to declare all diplomatic gifts received under his tenure and made money by reselling some.
The first attempt to arrest the former cricket champion failed because he was “reluctant to surrender”, police said without further details.
Since his ouster, he has multiplied large rallies and political speeches, or even dissolved the two provincial assemblies controlled by his party, to try to obtain early elections, which the government refuses.
In November, he was shot and wounded during a political rally. He attributed the assassination attempt to his successor, Shehbaz Sharif, and a senior army intelligence officer, without providing evidence for his allegations.
