Imran Khan protests against Pak PM Nawaz Sharif: All you need to know

Several thousand protestors were on the streets of Islamabad through Tuesday night and all of Wednesday morning in a bid to depose Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The coordinated protests are being led by former international cricketer Imran Khan, head of the country’s third-largest political party the PDP, and cleric Tahir ul-Qadri, who controls a network of Islamic schools and charities. [caption id=“attachment_1671979” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Imran Khan leads a protest against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan. AFP[/caption] Here is all you need to know about Pakistan’s crisis. * The protestors, who have been on the streets since Friday, are demanding resolution to long-standing problems in the country including worsening unemployment, power cuts, corruption and the Taliban insurgency. * Khan has accused Nawaz Sharif of rigging last year’s polls. The former cricketer has said his party in fact won a landslide victory in last year’s elections, though there has been no independent source to verify his claims of electoral fraud. * Qadri on the other hand has said Sharif is responsible for rising corruption. Until this week, their protests were simultaneous but separate, though both have demanded Sharif’s resignation. While Imran Khan wants the government to resign and fresh elections to be held, Qadri has sought that a technocracy government be installed. * On Wednesday however, Qadri’s supporters marched to the Pakistan Parliament alongside Khan’s supporters, starting separately but merging midway. Despite a heavy deployment of army personnel in Islamabad, protestors have rushed into the “red zone” where they were baton-charged. Clashes between police and protestors have taken on dramatc proportions especially in the Serena Chowk area where protestors removed shipping containers. There has also been a sit-in in front of Parliament even as the Sharif government announced that it would try to break the deadlock through dialogue. Information minister Pervaiz Rashid told Geo TV that the marchers have violated written commitment that they will not enter the ‘red zone’. Meanwhile, the government has said Khan and Qadri’s allegations would be probed. * Sharif is reportedly present inside his official residence located in the ‘red zone’ along with senior leaders of the ruling PML-N party. He has said he will not resign under any circumstances. * Hours before the protesters set off on Wednesday, the interior minister of Pakistan announced that soldiers would be deployed to stop them. This is seen as a message to the coup-prone country that the protests do not have any military backing. * A Barelvi cleric, Qadri has also been careful to display his democratic credentials and has told journalists that he does not seek the imposition of martial law, a dictatorship or even a theocratic state. That either Qadri or Khan has the Army’s support has been a matter of speculation, and Qadri has clarified that he is not associated with the military establishment in any way. “… I have never met the ISI chief or any army general, I have never spoken to any one of them on telephone in my entire life,” he reportedly told the BBC. * Imran Khan has declared that he intends to turn the area in front of Pakistan’s Parliament building into a “Tahrir Square”. With Agencies.