More than 5,000 supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan set off Sunday on a 170-mile march toward Islamabad, defying government appeals to cancel the demonstration and drawing threats of emergency powers from officials in a capital bracing for their arrival.
According to Breitbart News, the caravan departed from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the political heartland of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and local party figure Junaid Akbar Khan walked at the front of the procession, which is not expected to reach the Islamabad suburbs until Thursday.
Organizers said they would decide their next step once the marchers come within 50 miles of the capital. The government, meanwhile, has sealed off parts of Islamabad with shipping containers in an effort to keep the protesters out.
Negotiations collapse
The march was initially slated to begin September 27 but was pushed back after the government offered to address some of PTI’s concerns. Those talks ultimately failed, with party leaders pointing to two broken commitments: authorities did not allow them to meet with Khan in prison, and they refused a demand that he receive emergency medical treatment.
Two last-ditch rounds of negotiations over the weekend also ended without agreement. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had asked organizers to postpone the march, citing the threat of attacks by the militant Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and allied groups. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa shares a border with Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been exchanging fire with the Afghan Taliban regime over allegations that Kabul is harboring and supporting TTP fighters.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi accused PTI leaders of deliberately sabotaging the talks and warned they would be held responsible for any deaths or injuries that occur during the march.
Emergency rule floated
Opposition figures have accused Sharif of preparing to impose “emergency rule” or martial law to stop the demonstrators from reaching the capital. Some officials have done little to quiet those suspicions. “If imposing an emergency becomes necessary to save the province, then we will certainly impose it,” Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Karim Kundi said Sunday.
Speaking the same day, Interior Minister Naqvi delivered a blunt warning to the party. “We will finish it once for all,” he said, according to Breitbart. He has also suggested that if PTI keeps staging disruptive protests and refuses to cooperate with national counter-terrorism policy, the central government could remove it from power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Federal officials have gone further, claiming without public evidence that PTI is allowing TTP militants to join the march and slip into Islamabad. Naqvi said the party would not be permitted to shut down the capital or disrupt business operations.
A massive security mobilization
Tens of thousands of police officers have been deployed along the route from Islamabad into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — a show of force that PTI says is designed to intimidate marchers or give cover to a violent crackdown. The party has not offered evidence for that claim either, and the government says the deployment is strictly about security.
Khan, a former cricket star turned populist leader, was removed from office by a vote of no confidence in April 2022. A political comeback bid was derailed by corruption charges and an assassination attempt; he was jailed in 2023 on a raft of charges, with more convictions added since. His sentence now stands at at least 17 years, and additional cases remain pending.
Khan and PTI — described as both populist and Islamist in orientation — maintain that every charge against him is a political fabrication engineered by Pakistan’s governing elite to keep him from returning to power. Supporters physically blocked attempts to arrest him in 2023 and have staged several large marches demanding his release in the years since.
Now 74, Khan is said to be in poor health. PTI alleges that authorities are ignoring court orders requiring that he be examined at a private hospital — a claim that has become a central rallying cry for the marchers heading toward Islamabad.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2026/10/05/thousands-of-imran-khan-supporters-march-on-pakistans-capital/