The arrest of former Prime Minister Imran Khan and the widespread violence in its wake showed that “removing” him from the picture would solve nothing and it would only plunge the cash-strapped country further into “chaos and unrest”, Pakistan’s leading newspapers commented on Wednesday.
“Imran Khan has been arrested, and the Rubicon crossed. The breakout of fresh hostilities between the PTI and the state means any hopes of a negotiated breakthrough in the ongoing political stalemate can be put to rest,” the Dawn newspaper wrote in an editorial.
Though interior minister Rana Sanullah linked the arrest with a corruption investigation, the recent developments and Khan’s fresh confrontation with the armed forces suggest that he may have been picked up for an entirely different reason, it said. “The fact that it was the Punjab Rangers and not the Islamabad Police which was sent in to nab him from the Islamabad High Court’s premises seems to support the latter thesis,” the newspaper pointed out.
The 70-year-old former cricketer-turned-politician was taken into custody by the paramilitary Rangers on Tuesday on the orders of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) by barging into a room of the Islamabad High Court when he came to attend a corruption case hearing.
“The country is undergoing a poly-crisis at the moment and it appears that none of the stakeholders are focused on firefighting. Political leaders are prioritising short-term interests over those of the nation, and that is applicable across the board,” the Nation newspaper commented.
As far as Khan is concerned, his routine tirades are only increasing polarisation across the country and are bringing disrepute to the country’s institutions at a time when you need all hands on deck, it said, apparently referring to the serious economic crisis faced by Pakistan.