Islamabad protests: All you need to know about Imran's demand for Sharif's resignation

As agitators demanding the resignation of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif marched towards the Parliament building and the residence of the prime minister on Saturday night, Pakistani police fired teargas shells. Even as one demonstrator was killed and hundreds reportedly injured, the protests, led by former cricketer Imran Khan of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf and cleric-protestor Tahir ul-Qadri, who controls a network of Islamic schools and charities, only intensified. While Sharif himself reportedly left the capital for Lahore, at least 8,000 protesters were said to be on the streets of Islamabad. [caption id=“attachment_1674919” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Pakistan police personnel. AP[/caption] Here is all you need to know about Pakistan’s latest crisis. * The protestors, who have been on the streets since August 14, are demanding resolution to long-standing problems in the country including worsening unemployment, power cuts, corruption and the Taliban insurgency. But Saturday was the first time they staged a rally directly outside the office of the prime minister to demand that he step down. * On Saturday, Sharif repeated that there is no question of him resigning. Police subsequently fired tear gas shells at protesters camped in what is called the Red Zone in Islamabad, home to government buildings, embassies, the Parliament building and the PM’s official residence. * 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 recently, their protests were simultaneous but separate, though both had 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. * This weekend has seen the gravest turn of protests since the third week of August when 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 then rushed into this Red Zone where they were baton-charged. There was a sit-in in front of Parliament then too 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 said Khan and Qadri’s allegations would be probed. * A Barelvi cleric, Qadri has 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. The army stepping in to defuse the unrest has only sharpened these speculations. * When, last week, the powerful Pakistan Army intervened in the matter, the embattled Sharif chose to distance himself from the army’s move, saying he was not turning to the military for help. Embarrassingly, the army denied this and said they had been specifically instructed by the government to mediate. Imran Khan and Tahir ul-Qadri have both announced that they will now directly negotiate with Army Chief General Raheel Sharif, an announcement that has further weakened Nawaz Sharif, who was incidentally toppled in a military coup in 1999. * Imran Khan has declared that he intends to turn the area in front of Pakistan’s Parliament building into a “Tahrir Square”. With Agencies.