Pakistani police have fired tear gas and scuffled with stone-throwing supporters of defiant former Prime Minister Imran Khan as they gathered for planned marches Wednesday toward central Islamabad for a rally he hopes will bring down the government and force early elections. The marches have raised fears of major violence between supporters of Khan — now Pakistan’s top opposition leader — and security forces. The government of Khan’s successor, Shahbaz Sharif, has banned the rally and warned Khan he could face arrest if he went ahead with the demonstrations. Earlier in the morning, riot police fired tear gas and pushed back hundreds of demonstrators who hurled stones as they tried to pass a roadblocked bridge near the city of Lahore to board busses bound for the capital, Islamabad. A dozen demonstrators and several policemen were injured. Altercations between the police and Khan’s supporters were also reported elsewhere. Ahead of Wednesday’s marches, authorities used dozens of shipping containers and trucks to block off major roads into Islamabad. Khan, a former cricket star turned Islamist politician served as prime minister for over three and half years until last month, when he was ousted by a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Since then, he has held rallies with thousands of people across the country. Khan says his removal from office was the result of a U.S.-organized plot and collusion with Sharif, whose government has vowed a stern response if Khan violates the ban. Washington has also denied any role in Pakistan’s internal politics. Despite the ban, Khan is insisting his rally will be massive and peaceful — and continue until the government agrees to hold fresh elections this year, not in 2023 as scheduled. Organizers had planned for crowds to travel by car and bus to Islamabad’s city limits, then march on foot. Khan himself traveled by helicopter to a highway some 100 kilometers (62 miles) northwest of Islamabad, where he condemned the police crackdown and urged supporters to join the rally. “My message for the nation: Everyone must break out of the grip of fear to achieve freedom,” he wrote on Twitter, before starting out by vehicle from the Swabi interchange. His convoy still faces a series of roadblocks ahead that would require heavy machinery to remove. Khan has urged his supporters to remove the containers that were filled with earth and circumvent any blockades in order to enter the city. “I will be among you Wednesday afternoon,” he had vowed on Tuesday. Also Read: Pakistan bans Imran Khan's rally, cracks down on supporters Thousands of Khan’s supporters along with leaders of his Tehreek-e-Insaf party had already massed in Peshawar, the capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where his party rules. From there, his followers must cross a bridge at the province’s border that the government has blocked, before assembling on the outskirts of Islamabad. The government launched a crackdown and arrested more than 1,700 Khan supporters, according to Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah. He congratulated his countrymen for rejecting the rally by not participating in it and apologized for the inconvenience caused to citizens due to the blockades. “Imran Khan had claimed that he would gather 2 million people here in Islamabad today, but he is marching toward Islamabad along with only 6,000 or 7,000 demonstrators,” he told a news conference Wednesday. “We are fully prepared to handle him.” Authorities have deployed additional police and paramilitary troops on highways and in Islamabad, with also tractor trailers parked across both lanes of traffic in several areas. The measures were announced after a policeman was killed during a raid on the home of a notable Khan supporter in Lahore. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s Supreme Court was hearing a petition Wednesday to remove the blockades into Islamabad. Authorities say that if Khan submits a written assurance that his rally will be peaceful and confined to a public park, the government could consider lifting its ban. The court was expected to announce an order about Khan’s rally later in the day.    

Pakistan’s parliament on Thursday adjourned a debate on the political survival of Prime Minister Imran Khan after the opposition had called for a no-confidence vote on the embattled premier. Besieged by the opposition and abandoned by coalition partners, Khan faces the greatest challenge so far in his political career. The opposition accuses him of economic mismanagement and claims he is unfit for the role of prime minister. There was no immediate explanation for the adjournment of Thursday's session, which was postponed within minutes of opening. Parliament was to reconvene on Sunday to begin the debate. The actual vote on Khan, who was to address the nation later Thursday, was expected in three to seven days after the start of the debate. Also read: Allies abandon Pakistani premier ahead of no-confidence vote Analysts have predicted that Khan would be ousted after a series of defections appear to have given his political opponents the 172 votes in the 342-seat house to push him out. Khan came to power in 2018, promising to rid Pakistan of corruption even as he partnered with some of the country's tainted old guard. He called them ‘electables’ — necessary to win elections because their wealth and vast land holdings guaranteed votes in large swaths of the country. A former international cricket star turned politician, Khan has espoused a more conservative brand of Islam. He has also kept company with radical clerics, including Maulana Tariq Jameel, who once said that women in short skirts had caused the COVID-19 epidemic. Still, Khan is credited with building the country's foreign reserves, now over $18 billion. Remittances from Pakistanis living overseas was a whopping $29 billion in 2021, despite the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. Khan's reputation for fighting corruption has encouraged Pakistanis to send money home and he has also cracked down on the unofficial money transfer system, known as Hawala. However, the opposition blames him for high inflation and a weak Pakistani rupee. Also read: Imran to skip Biden's democracy summit His handling of the coronavirus pandemic brought him international praise. His implementation of so-called “smart” lockdowns that targeted heavily infected areas — rather than a nationwide shutdown — kept some of the country’s key industries such as construction afloat. On Thursday, the leader of a key opposition party, Bilawal Bhutto, urged Khan to resign. “You have lost. . . You have only one option: Resign,” Bhutto said. In recent days, Khan has turned to conspiracy theories to explain the challenge to his rule and has gone on national television to claim the opposition is in cahoots with a foreign government — a reference to the United States — to unseat him. Khan's often-stated opposition to Washington's so-called 'war in terror" as well as the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan has brought him popularity at home. He has tried to reach out to Afghanistan's new Taliban rulers, fostered close ties to China and Russia and abstained from the U.N. Security Council vote condemning Russian for invading Ukraine. Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution blamed Khan’s political woes on his confrontational style and a cooling of relations between him and the powerful military, widely reported to have assisted Khan’s election victory in 2018. Pakistan’s army has been the country's de facto ruler more than half of its 75-year history — even when governments are democratically elected, the military maintains considerable control from behind the scenes, despite their claims of neutrality. In a Brookings Institution podcast, Afzal said it’s rare for a Pakistani political leader to finish his term. “This is part of a much larger, longer cycle that reflects on Pakistan’s built-in political instability," she said. “Essentially, opposition parties don’t wait for elections to occur, for the previous party to be voted out, or for the prime ministers to be ousted from power,” Afzal added. “While the military says that it is neutral in this situation, in this political crisis, what many read that as saying is that the military has basically withdrawn its support from Khan.”

Lawmakers appeared poised to push Prime Minister Imran Khan out of power in an upcoming no-confidence vote, after a small but key coalition partner abandoned him and joined the opposition on Wednesday. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement has only five seats, but their move puts the number of Khan’s opponents in parliament at well over the 172 needed to oust him in the vote, to be held sometime next week. Read: Imran Khan visits Sri Lanka as Muslims demand burial rights It seemed likely to be the terminal blow to Khan, who already faces a revolt by a dozen lawmakers from his own Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party who’ve publicly pledged to vote against him. Nasreen Jalil, a leader of the MQM party, announced the decision to reporters early Wednesday. Khan, who came to power in 2018 by getting 176 votes of the 342-seat National Assembly, or lower house of parliament, was expected to address the nation Wednesday night.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has tested positive for the coronavirus two days after he received his first vaccine dose, officials announced Saturday.