Thousands march to oust Pakistani PM

KARACHI: Tens of thousands of Pakistanis joined opposition leader Imran Khan Thursday as he traveled from Lahore to the capital to oust Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over fraud allegations in an election 15 months ago. Khan’s supporters waved red-and-green party flags and danced to music in open trucks along the journey of more than 250 kilometers. Police said as many as 45,000 people joined Khan and cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri, while their camps put the figure at 125,000. “Imran Khan will place his list of demands, or demand, once we are in the capital,” Naeemul Haque, Khan’s chief of staff, said by phone, adding that they would probably reach Islamabad at some time Friday. “As of now we cannot say what those demands are.” The rally is the biggest challenge yet to Sharif as he seeks to revive Pakistan’s economy and end a Taleban insurgency that has killed more than 55,000 people since 2001. Stocks and the rupee have fallen this week on concerns that the protest will turn violent or trigger a coup. “He’s in a win-win situation,” Ikram Sehgal, a former military official and chairman of the Pathfinder Group, one of Pakistan’s largest security companies, said of Khan. “If they stop him, he’s won. If they don’t stop him, he’s won.” Sharif allowed Khan and Qadri, who also leads a political party and has pushed for cleaner elections, to continue with the march after receiving assurances no violence would take place, Ishrat Ul Ebad Khan, governor of Sindh province, told Samaa TV. More than a dozen flights scheduled to arrive or leave Islamabad have been canceled, including those by Pakistan International Airlines Corp. and China Southern Airlines Co. Ltd., according to the website of the capital’s airport. Police blocked roads and cut mobile-phone service ahead of the rally, while a law minister in Sharif’s home province of Punjab warned that gunmen may attack protesters. AP