Pakistan rangers fire bullets on people outside former PM Imran Khan’s residence

Pakistanrsquos police and paramilitary rangers on Wednesday fired live shells at countryrsquos former prime minister Imran Khanrsquos residence in Zaman Park Lahore after people resisted the law enforcing agenciesrsquo bid to arrest KhanKhanrsquos party the Pakistan TehreekiInsaaf said the former premierrsquos residence was under ldquoextreme attackrdquo as footage of the forces firing at the Zaman Park residence of Khan went viral on social media networksIn the wee hours of Wednesday many viral videos showed contingents of police and rangers approaching Khanrsquos Zaman Park residence in Lahore where a standoff between people and police and rangers has been going on for more than 24 hours since Tuesday morningPakistan media reported that a tense situation prevailed in the provincial capital Lahore as police accompanied by the army rangers made a fresh attempt to arrest the former prime minister Imran Khan but faced stiff resistance from thousands of people who have gathered outside Zaman ParkThe police has so far failed to arrest the former premier as people have laid siege to the path leading to Imran Khanrsquos residence as well as the neighbouring Canal Road ARY News reportedOn Tuesday night thousands of people including the Pakistan TehreekeInsaf PTI supporters took control of Zaman Park following an hourslong faceoff with police and the army rangers who had arrived to arrest the former prime ministerKhan has been charged of selling the state gifts and has been disqualified by the Election Commission of Pakistan in the now infamous Toshakhana reference under Article 631pAlso read My arrest part of London plan Imran KhanldquoImran Khan being declared disqualified and unseated from his National Assembly seatrdquo the ECP said adding ldquoHe has been disqualified under Article 63 1P over submitting a false statement and declarationrdquoIn a statement late on Tuesday Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said the government had nothing to do with the arrest warrant against Khan and that the matter was up to the courtsRangers firing straight into unarmed citizens at Zaman Park as if they are attacking an enemy force on the battlefield pictwittercomdK8mlLHA4Ymdash Imran Khan ImranKhanPTI March 15 2023Instead of cooperating with law enforcement officials Imran Khan is breaking the law defying court orders and using his party workers as human shields to evade arrest and stoke unrest she addedlsquoReal intent is to abduct and assassinatersquoAfter the deployment of Rangers on Wednesday Khan said that the ldquoreal intent is to abduct and assassinate himrdquo as the police have ldquonow resorted to live firingrdquoldquoFrom tear gas amp water cannons they have now resorted to firing I signed a surety bond last evening but the DIG refused to even entertain it There is no doubt of their mala fide intentrdquo he said in a tweetIn another video shared on PTIrsquos Twitter account in the wee hours of Wednesday the PTI chief said that his arrest was part of the ldquoLondon planrdquoThe former prime minister also claimed that in order to ldquoavoid anarchyrdquo he had signed an undertaking and his counsel Ishtiaq A Khan tried presenting the surety to the Islamabad police deputy inspector general DIG sent to arrest himAs the country is turning into a chaos and more precisely the Lahore turning into a battleground of sorts the administration has announced the closure of all educational institutions in the cityldquoAll public and private educational institutions will remain closed in Garhi Shahu Jail Road Mall Road and Mian Mirrdquo a notification issued by Lahore Commissioner Ali Randhawa readZaman park operationA team of Islamabad police on Tuesday reached Lahore to arrest Pakistan TehreekeInsaf Chairman Imran Khan after a district and sessions court issued his nonbailable arrest warrants for failing to attend the hearing in Toshakhana referenceThe court of ADSJ Zafar Iqbal restored nonbailable arrest warrants for Khan in the Toshakhana reference It instructed the police to arrest the PTI chief and present him in court by March 18In a statement the Islamabad police spokesperson said that they have reached Lahore to arrest PTI chief on court orders Later people including Khanrsquos supporters and police officials clashed outside his Zaman Park residenceThe police used randomly shot tearsmoke shells and used water cannons to disperse the people who had gathered outside the Khanrsquos Zaman Park residenceMeanwhile the former United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad has warned that the arrest of Imran Khan will deepen the crises being faced by the countryKhalilzad tweeted that Pakistan was facing a triple crisis ndash political economic and securityldquoDespite great potential it is underperforming and falling far behind its archrival Indiardquo Zalmay Khalilzad said adding that it was time for serious ldquosoulsearching bold thinking and strategisingrdquoHe said that the sequential cannibalising of its leaders through jailing execution assassination is the wrong path ldquoArresting Imran Khan will only deepen the crisisrdquo he notedEmergency committee formed Meanwhile the PTI Chairman has constituted a sixmember lsquoemergency committeersquo to overlook party matters in case of arrest Dawn Newspaper reportedThe sixmember committee ndash constituted to overlook party matters ndash included PTI vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi Senator Saifullah Niazi Senator Azam Swati Ijaz Chaudhy Murad Saeed and Ali Amin GandapurThe emergency committee will overlook the matters if Imran Khan gets arrested as per a statement issued by the political partyNationwide protests As soon as the news of the police action at Lahorersquos Zaman Park spread a number of people came out on streets and blocked roads at several places in the country The protests were reported from the financial capital Karachi national capital Islamabad Rawalpindi Faisalabad Sialkot and other major city centresKey detailsCourt orders to arrest Khan came in a case pertaining to his selling state gifts given by foreign leaders while he was prime ministerPakistans election commission found him guilty in the matter and now a criminal inquiry is under wayKhan says he broke no rules and sold the items legallyPolice say a court in Islamabad ordered Khans arrest for not appearing before it despite repeated summonsKhan and his aides cite security concerns for the nonappearance He was injured in an attack on his protest gathering last yearKhan says 76 cases have been registered against him since he was ousted by a parliamentary vote in April 2022 less than four years into his fiveyear termHe has appeared in court for other cases If convicted Khan faces being barred from holding public office which would be a setback for the cricketerturnedpolitician with a national election scheduled for NovemberIf he is arrested Khans party has vowed to ramp up protests which analysts say would add to the struggles of a government already hobbled by an economic crisis that has left the nucleararmed country on the brink of default With inputs from agencies