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Pakistan police detain dozens of Imran Khan's supporters in Islamabad

Pakistan's cricketer turned politician Imran Khan (C) talks to journalists outside the Supreme Court in Islamabad on October 20, 2016. (Photo by AP)

Police have raided a youth convention for opposition leader Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party in the capital, Islamabad, arresting dozens of activists ahead of a planned protest.

Images on local news channels showed police in uniform beating activists with batons and leading those detained away to waiting buses.

"All of a sudden police arrived and started arresting people," media outlets quoted Anila Khawaja, a spokeswoman for PTI as saying.

Several PTI leaders and lawmakers have been infuriated by the police raid.

"The government has proved that there is no democracy in Pakistan, it is a monarchy,” Asad Umar, a PTI lawmaker, told reporters from the scene.

A spokesman for the Islamabad district administration said the raid was enforcing the order issued earlier in the day by the city's top administrator which outlawed gatherings of more than five people.

The Thursday raid came hours after a city order banned all public gatherings ahead of Khan's planned protest set to begin on November 2 in Islamabad. Khan, a former Pakistan cricket star who turned politician, has described the upcoming mass protest as a final push to force Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign over corruption allegations.

The leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, waves to supporters during a rally in Peshawar, Pakistan, on August 7, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Khan led a previous mass protest in the summer of 2014 in front of parliament, calling for the government to resign over election rigging allegations.

Khan has insisted that his anti-government protests would continue until the Sharif administration offers an appropriate response to the corruption allegations.

Leaked confidential documents from the Panamanian Mossack Fonseca law firm have shown how the company helped rich and powerful clients across the world with shady businesses. 

The clients reportedly included three of Sharif's children, who carried out business transactions which could be judged as money laundering and tax avoidance. 

The leaked records revealed that Sharif's children, Hasan, Hussain and Maryam, not only owned offshore companies, but also real estate properties in London. Sharif's family denies any wrongdoing.

People in Pakistan, with Imran Khan at the helm, are asking for an inquiry to determine how Sharif’s children made all that money to buy offshore companies and real estate in London's prime locations, and whether they had paid their due tax on their income.


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