Social media apps restricted in Pakistan after Imran Khan's arrest

Social media apps including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have reportedly been down in several parts of Pakistan on Tuesday following Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan's arrest. 

According to the outage-tracking website, Downdetector.com, users are unable to log in to their accounts on all three platforms, meaning they also couldn't post or view anything. 

Apart from that, a large number of smartphone users are complaining about their WhatsApp which is not working both on desktops and cellphones.

Downdetector tracks outages by collating status report from a series of sources, including user-submitted errors on its platform. The outage could have affected a larger number of users.

The suspension of social media platforms and WhatsApp came soon after workers and followers of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) started holding countrywide protests following former prime minister Imran Khan's arrest in the Al-Qadir Trust case.

Earlier today, Rangers personnel arrested the former prime minister from the premises of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) — acting on National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) warrant.

Following his arrest, the PTI urged supporters all across Pakistan to protest and "block all roads, close all shops".

Subsequently, PTI workers held protests in several cities, including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan, Peshawar, and Mardan.

In Karachi, demonstrators clashed with the police near Nursery. They threw stones at and set fire to police vehicles, tore down street lights, and damaged a bus. There were reports that police fired teargas shells at the protesters.

Protesters also caused damage to public property in other cities, including Rawalpindi and Lahore.