Pakistan seals roads to Islamabad before protests for Imran Khan’s release

SaveSharefacebookxwhatsapp-strokecopylinkVideo Duration 04 minutes 22 seconds play-arrow04:22Islamabad locked down as Pakistan braces for protests over fuel pricesBy Al Jazeera StaffPublished On 23 Sep 202623 Sep 2026Authorities in Pakistan have begun sealing off the main roads into the country’s capital, Islamabad, to block supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan from reaching the city.Police in Islamabad said on Wednesday that the Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway, the Islamabad-Dera Ismail Khan Motorway and the Grand Trunk Road would be closed at several points starting in the evening. They urged the public to plan travel accordingly.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan’s sisters arrested before planned PTI marchlist 2 of 3Iran’s Pezeshkian meets Pakistan’s Naqvi in Tehran as tensions with US riselist 3 of 3Afghanistan says three killed in Pakistani air attacksend of listDawn, a leading Pakistani newspaper, reported that the closures were indefinite and aimed at preventing supporters of Khan’s party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), from marching to the capital on September 27.The protesters are demanding the release of Khan, who has been jailed since August 2023 following a series of convictions that his party calls politically motivated. All but one have since been suspended or overturned on appeal.Concerns about his health, in particular the condition of his right eye, which has required months of specialist treatment, have prompted the party’s campaign for his release.The marches were expected to set out for Islamabad from Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, about 1,150km (715 miles) to the southwest, and from Lahore, about 270km (170 miles) to the southeast.The authorities have placed about 2,000 shipping containers around the capital and at Attock Bridge, a crossing from the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dawn reported. Containers and sandbags have also been placed at Haroon Bridge, the other key crossing between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, and nearly 30,000 security personnel have been deployed in the Attock district, it added. Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said that the government had told “the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf to reconsider its plans”.“But the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, on the other hand, says peaceful protest is their constitutional right; they want the release of their leader Imran Khan from jail, and they say they’re doing this in order to uphold the constitution.”Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi had warned the PTI against the protest on Monday, saying “we have clearly told them that they can never achieve anything through such drama.” He added, “I will say again that there is still time; they should not go into this situation.”On Sunday, the police arrested Khan’s sister Aleema Khan at her home in Lahore under a public order law. Two other sisters, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi, were also arrested, along with several other relatives.Separately, Jamaat-e-Islami, another opposition party, began its own march from Karachi to Islamabad on Sunday to protest high fuel prices. Before leaving by train, the party’s leader, Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman, warned that if the government did not scrap a levy on petroleum of more than 100 rupees ($0.36) per litre (0.26 gallons), the protest could become a campaign to topple it, Dawn reported.But after reaching Multan in Punjab province on Monday night, Rehman said on Tuesday that the party would postpone its march, at the request of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, until the two could meet.