ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s political crisis threatened to spiral out of control on Wednesday, a day after the arrest of opposition leader and former prime minister Imran Khan, as two provinces requested military support against protesters amid reports of several deaths.
After a tense night across Pakistan, hundreds of Khan supporters had been arrested by Wednesday afternoon, Pakistani officials said. Among those taken into custody were several key members of Khan’s political party.
Tensions appeared to run particularly high in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and its regional capital, Peshawar. Officials there said protesters targeted buildings and equipment of the country’s public broadcaster, attacked army checkpoints and set fire outside the headquarters of a paramilitary force.
Members of Khan’s party accused law enforcement officers of opening fire on protesters, wounding at least four of them in Peshawar. Naheed Khan, a spokeswoman of the city’s main hospital, said its emergency unit received three bodies and 27 injured people in the wake of Wednesday’s protests.
“Some of the protesters have bullet injuries; others have injuries from tear gas shelling,” she said.
It was unclear who had shot at the protesters. The caretaker provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which did not immediately address the claims from Khan’s party, confirmed that it had called in the military to restore order. Earlier in the day, the regional government of Punjab agreed on similar measures.
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