Tens of thousands of protesters led by Imran Khan and Tahir ul Qadri have staged a sit-in outside the Parliament House on Wednesday in a bid to depose the prime minister, bringing a week-long political drama to a head.
Their five-day protest rally in Islamabad, and the two-day “long marches” from the eastern city of Lahore that preceded it, have piled pressure on the government little more than a year since its landslide victory.
The government had ordered them not to enter the capital’s “red zone”, but Khan and Qadri defied the call and soon after midnight on Wednesday thousands of their supporters entered the high-security red zone, using cranes to remove shipping containers put in place to seal the area.
Tens of thousands of security personnel have been deployed to maintain order and on Tuesday evening the government doubled the contingent of soldiers guarding sensitive buildings in the red zone to 700.
Despite fears of violence, there were no major clashes as the protesters entered the red zone, and the government pledged restraint.
“We will protest in front of the parliament, we will not enter inside but will stage such a big crowd that people will forget Tahrir Square,” Khan told cheering followers.
He said if Sharif did not resign by Wednesday evening, he would lead his supporters to the prime minister’s official residence.
Meanwhile PM Nawaz Sharif has ruled out any possibility of his forced resignation.
