Government warns of crackdown as supporters of jailed former prime set off from northwest Pakistan towards Islamabad.
Supporters of jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan have set off on a protest march from the country’s northwest after talks with the government to call off the demonstration failed.
More than 5,000 were reported to have begun the rally on Sunday. The march, planned by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, was originally scheduled for September 27 but was postponed until October 4 to allow talks between the government and the PTI leadership to take place.
However, two rounds of talks over the weekend failed to break the deadlock, and the PTI decided to carry out its plan, which is the latest attempt to pressure the government into releasing Khan, the country’s most popular political figure according to polls, who has been behind bars since August 2023 following a series of convictions that his party calls politically motivated.
All but one of the convictions against the former PM have since been suspended or overturned on appeal.
Videos posted on the PTI’s official social media showed supporters joining the march in different areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, which is ruled by the party, and setting off in convoys.
🔴 LIVE | Long March to Islamabad for Imran Khan’s Release | CM Sohail Afridi Leads from KP https://t.co/ByrasN0hmG
— PTI (@PTIofficial) October 4, 2026
Sohail Afridi, the region’s chief minister, had earlier posted on social media that the demonstration in support of Khan would go ahead.
He said the march will make its way to Khairabad, 80 kilometres (50 miles) west of Islamabad, by Thursday, where the plan for the “next phase” will be announced.
The government has been preparing for weeks for the arrival of PTI demonstrators in Islamabad. It has erected barriers using shipping containers to block main access routes to the capital.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi confirmed earlier on Sunday that the talks between the two sides had failed. He accused Afridi of “sabotaging” the negotiations, and added that the government would not allow the PTI to “create a disturbance”.
He also cited an Islamabad High Court order from September 14, ruling that no political party or its leadership has the “lawful right to occupy public roads, highways, interchanges, toll plazas and buildings in Islamabad”.
“If they violate the orders, whether they are workers or politicians, whether they are protesting within KP or outside KP, we will pursue them one by one. This time, we want to ensure that these repeated episodes of creating disturbance in Islamabad come to an end,” Naqvi said.
The party has also called for the release of Khan’s three sisters, whose arrests last month further heightened tensions.
James Dorsey, a fellow at the National University of Singapore, said Khan was “essentially a populist leader” with “a genuine popular movement that had broad popular support”.
That is behind the “determination by the government to prevent [the protesters] from entering Islamabad,” he told the AFP news agency.
Given Pakistan’s security concerns, particularly following its unresolved February 2026 conflict with Afghanistan, Islamabad wants to avoid escalation in the face of the protests, he added.
“It’s a problem for the government, but I don’t think it’s an existential threat,” he said.
The government has blocked highways to the capital and set up container barriers in preparation for the PTI protest.
At 37, he’s the PTI’s top elected leader. But the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister is assuming a national role too.
As Islamabad prepares for another opposition march, drivers and businesses are counting the cost of seized containers.
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