Dozens injured, one killed as police clash with Imran Khan’s supporters near Islamabadl

ISLAMABAD: At least one police officer was killed and dozens of people injured in Pakistan as supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan clashed with security forces outside the capital Islamabad on Monday (Nov 25), officials and Khan’s party said.
Authorities have enforced a security lockdown for the last two days after Khan called for a march on parliament for a sit-in demonstration to demand his release, while highways into the city have been barricaded.
One police officer was shot and killed, at least 119 others were injured, and 22 police vehicles were torched in clashes just outside Islamabad and elsewhere in the Punjab province, provincial police chief Usman Anwar said. Two officers were in critical condition, he said.
Khan’s party said scores of its workers were also hurt.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said security forces showed “extreme restraint” in confronting the protesters, some of whom he said had fired live rounds, while police only used rubber bullets and fired teargas canisters.
“It is easy to respond a bullet with a bullet,” he said.
But Khan’s party accused the government of using excessive violence to block the protesters and said hundreds of workers and leaders had been arrested.
“They are even firing live bullets,” one of Khan’s aides, Shaukat Yousafzai, told Geo News.
Reuters TV and local TV footage showed police firing teargas canisters at Khan’s supporters, who were pelting them with stones and bricks.
The videos showed vehicles and trees ablaze along the main march just outside Islamabad as the protesters at some places pushed shipment containers to make their way.