Pakistan blocks key roads around capital ahead of Sunday's planned pro-Imran Khan protest
- Last updated: September 24, 2026 | 16:53
Authorities in Pakistan's capital blocked main access routes to the city with double-stacked shipping containers on Thursday ahead of a weekend demonstration by supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.
The blockades are a nightmare for the commuters. However, strictly inside Islamabad city the vehicular traffic is mostly normal as the containers have so far been placed by the roadside to be used for blocking the roads when needed.
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), which is expected to come out with its plan for the protest by Friday, has been told that the federal government will not allow it to go through with the planned march on Islamabad.
Police deployed 22,000 security personnel to lock down Islamabad, officials told AFP, barring entry and exit to neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Khan's party rules.
Key highways, entry points, and major intersections were obstructed, completely severing transport links and bringing movement to a virtual standstill.
Cars could be seen stuck in traffic jams, with motorbike riders squeezing in and out of gaps between containers.
AFP journalists saw the toll plaza for the Islamabad-Peshawar highway on the outskirts of the capital completely cut off on Thursday afternoon, with barriers and containers blocking the major road.
"The motorway is closed, and ordinary people are facing serious difficulties because of this situation," 25-year-old schoolteacher Nayhmat Khan said. "Poor people depend on daily wages to earn a living, and with the current inflation, life has already become extremely difficult for them," he told AFP.
The government's preemptive crackdown ahead of Sunday's planned protest intensified earlier this week with the detention of Khan's sisters Aleema Khan, Uzma Khan, and Noreen Niazi under Punjab's Maintenance of Public Order ordinance.
The preventive 30-day detention orders issued by authorities accused them of "mobilising supporters via social media and incitement against state institutions", according to an order seen by AFP journalists.
Dozens of lawmakers, regional leaders, and opposition activists affiliated with Imran Khan's party, PTI, were also rounded up across multiple districts in Punjab province and the capital, Islamabad.
PTI leader Naeem Haider Panjutha said the government had closed down Islamabad, and the PTI would come to re-open it, while following the orders of Islamabad High Court (IHC).
He said that workers from west, central and south Punjab will protest in their respective areas. "However, workers from North Punjab will join the march led by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Afridi," he said, adding that the march would not be called off.
PTI's information secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram said "almost 1,500" party activists had been detained.
Waqas Akram said their march would be totally peaceful and the party would not own any violence. He suggested that the federal government engage opposition leaders Raja Nasir Abbas and Mehmood Khan Achakzai, as they had been authorised by Imran Khan to negotiate on the opposition's behalf.
However, Minister of State for Interior Tallal Chaudhry refuted the PTI claim that they had been offered any confidence-building measures (CBMs).
"Had the government offered any CBMs, there would have been no long march," he said, adding that the party had made such "one-sided claims" in the past too, but they were not true. "They are claiming too much. We are not even prepared to offer them less."
While Sohail Afridi was expected to announce the details of the long march plan on Friday, the leadership and workers in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan have so far no clue about the strategy. "In the past, three convoys used to march from KP.
When Ali Amin Gandapur led the march from Peshawar, a second group from Hazara was led by Omar Ayub, and the third caravan from south KP was spearheaded by Umar Amin Gandapur," one PTI leader recalled.
International human rights watchdogs have repeatedly expressed concern over increasing press censorship, mass arrests, and restrictions on fundamental freedoms in Pakistan amid the ongoing political impasse.
"The targeting of Imran Khan's family and PTI party activists is a flagrant violation of their rights to liberty, freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly," said Babu Ram Pant from Amnesty International. "Such actions speak to the severity of the current restrictions in Pakistan."
Imran Khan, a 73-year-old former cricket star, has been behind bars since August 2023 and faces scores of charges ranging from corruption to treason and inciting violence following widespread anti-establishment riots in May 2023.
He and his legal team reject the allegations, branding them as politically motivated cases aimed at neutralising his popularity.
He received medical treatment this year, with his family and lawyer saying that he had lost most of the vision in his right eye.
The capital march represents PTI's first major street push in months to press for Imran Khan's release.
Pakistan's Information Minister, Attaullah Tarar, denied the city was being put under lockdown.
"They do not have to come to Islamabad," Tarar told a press conference in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. "No one will be allowed to shut down the city."
A parallel demonstration originally planned by the right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami party and farmers' union leaders over soaring inflation and petroleum levies was suspended following a call with Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif's administration, leaving Khan's party to march alone.