Govt set to arrest Imran, key PTI leaders before Islamabad lockdown

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has started working on a plan to thwart PTI chief Imran Khan's attempt to 'lockdown' Islamabad on November 2, according to sources.

Sources disclosed that it was likely that several key leaders of the PTI as well as party chairman Imran Khan would be placed under house arrest, in order to thwart their efforts to mobilize a huge crowd against the government.

A list of senior PTI leaders and party workers was being prepared, sources claimed. These key party leaders and workers would be taken into custody and arrested before November 2, when Imran Khan plans to stop the government from functioning.

Responding to the reports of arrests of PTI leadership on Thursday, Imran Khan said that we are ready for everything, we have learned from the 2014 dharna and the party is now well prepared to face any untoward situation.

If government tried to block the protest, which is our constitutional right, they will be responsible for the reaction, he warned.

Imran Khan has threatened the government that if Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif did not present himself for accountability or resign as the Chief Executive of the country, then PTI would initiate an 'Islamabad lockdown', which would aim to block the city and dissuade the government from functioning.

Imran Khan had decided to launch the protest after talks between the government and the united opposition failed on the issue of the terms of reference of the judicial council which would investigate PM Nawaz.

PML-N representatives have said recently publicly that no one would be allowed to block Islamabad and any such move would be resisted by the government.