ISLAMABAD - The federal government on Tuesday decided to deploy Pakistan Army in the capital city’s Red Zone to stop the entry of protestors in the high security area, in case former prime minister Imran Khan leads a PTI long march on the capital to seek early elections.
The government also decided that protestors would not be allowed to enter the capital city at any cost.
These decisions were taken at a meeting chaired by Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan at the Ministry of Interior. The primary purpose of the meeting was to review the law and order situation and to finalise a strategy to stop the marchers entering into Islamabad, according to the official sources in the interior ministry.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan has announced to hold a long march on Islamabad to press the government to hold early elections, but he has yet to give a final date of the protest. It is likely that the march will finally convert into a sit-in once the protesters reach their final destination—the capital of Pakistan. In a recent interview, Khan has said that only few people close to him knew about the details of their plan. The meeting at the interior ministry decided that the security of all important buildings and the diplomatic enclave, located in the Red Zone would be handed over to the Pakistan Army during the protest march. For this purpose, the army troops would be called out under Article 245 of the Constitution to assist the civil administration in maintaining law and order in the federal capital. It was also decided in the meeting that Sindh Police, and paramilitary troops including Rangers and Frontier Constabulary (FC) would be requisitioned to assist the Islamabad Police during the protest.