A COUNTRY IN CHAOS

PAKISTAN PLUNGES INTO POLITICAL MAYHEM AS FORMER PRIME MINISTER AND EX-CRICKETER IMRAN KHAN PRECIPITATES A CRISIS BY CHALLENGING THE GOVERNMENT AND THE MIGHTY ARMY EVEN AS THE ECONOMY GOES INTO FREE FALL

- HASAN ZAIDI

The moment the Islamabad High Court restored Imran Khan's arrest warrants on March 13-they had been suspended earlier on his appeal-the Islamabad police hopped onto a helicopter to Lahore to go and arrest him. But they couldn't. The former prime minister was leading an election rally' in Lahore while sitting in a bulletproof car and the crowds around him never allowed the police to approach him. After the rally, Khan simply turned around and went back to his home in Lahore.

An even more farcical stand-off occurred the next day as the police attempted to arrest Khan from his Zaman Park house. Hundreds of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers and supporters beat back police and paramilitary contingents with sticks, stones and Molotov cocktails, blocked roads in Lahore and elsewhere in protest and set fire to water cannons and whatever else they could find. Scores of policemen were injured.

It was reported that the police of Gilgit Baltistan-where the PTI has a government-had been drafted in to protect Khan and had pointed their guns at the Islamabad police officers trying to get inside Khan's house. But he remained ensconced inside, sending out defiant videos on social media and refusing to budge. For the moment, the Lahore High Court has asked the police to halt operations outside Imran's house. But the showdown is symbolic of the political upheavals that have wracked the country even as the country's economy continues to tank, causing enormous hardship to the public (see accompanying story, Pakistan's Fast Emptying Coffers).