Imran Khan’s party postpones Islamabad march to October 4 amid security restrictions

Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party has postponed its planned march on Islamabad from September 27 to October 4, leaving a week between the new protest date and the extensive security measures authorities put in place around the capital. The party says it will continue to demand the jailed former prime minister’s release. The delay changes the immediate prospect of a confrontation over entry to Islamabad, but leaves open how authorities will respond to the rescheduled march.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi announced the decision in Peshawar on Friday, September 25, after a meeting of PTI’s political committee. He said the march would start from Peshawar on October 4. Khan, the party’s founder, is held at Adiala jail in Rawalpindi, according to Dawn. The original September 27 plan had already prompted road closures and a substantial security deployment.

A new date, with competing explanations

Afridi said PTI would continue pressing for Khan’s release and medical treatment, and that the party intended to remain peaceful. PTI information secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram said its political committee had endorsed the postponement and the party would support it, according to Dawn’s postponement report.

On Saturday, PTI’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa information secretary Shaukat Yousafzai called the delay ‘a political strategy’. He told Geo News that the federal government had brought thousands of police officers and shipping containers into the area, prompting the party to change course. Yousafzai said PTI supported a peaceful struggle and urged the federal government to engage in practical negotiations.

The decision also exposed differences among opposition allies. Dawn reported that leaders of the Tehreek-i-Tahaffuz Ayeen-i-Pakistan alliance initially opposed postponement. An alliance spokesperson said they would support PTI’s October 4 march while declining to endorse the decision to delay it. Akram, by contrast, said PTI’s political committee backed the new date. The dispute concerns the timing of the march, rather than an announced abandonment of its demand for Khan’s release.

Restrictions around the capital

Authorities had blocked roads, bridges and motorways leading towards Islamabad and Rawalpindi before the original march date, Dawn reported on September 26. A separate Dawn report said a federal notification authorised deployment of Pakistan Rangers in Islamabad and several Punjab districts from September 20 to October 5. That authorised period extends beyond PTI’s newly announced October 4 date; it does not, by itself, show what restrictions will be in force when the march begins.

The Guardian reported on September 25 that more than 1,000 shipping containers were being used to block key roads into Islamabad and that 22,000 police and other security personnel had been deployed across the capital. Those are figures for the security operation as reported that day. They should be read alongside the dated accounts of the blockades, rather than treated as a current count of personnel or closed routes.

The restrictions affected residents as well as prospective marchers. The Guardian reported that businesses were struggling to obtain supplies during the shutdown. It quoted Shahid, a 76-year-old retired businessman, saying: ‘The entire city is suffering. The government has shut down the whole city and we, as citizens, are helpless.’ His account describes the disruption he experienced before the original protest date; it does not establish conditions across Islamabad after the postponement.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor Faisal Karim Kundi, a central government appointee, defended the security measures to The Guardian as precautionary. He accused PTI of seeking ‘instability and violence’. Afridi, meanwhile, told the newspaper that he feared a violent confrontation if supporters tried to enter the capital. These were opposing assessments of the risk surrounding the proposed march, not reports that a clash had occurred during it.

What the October 4 plan leaves open

PTI now says its march will leave Peshawar on October 4, while the federal authorisation for Rangers reported by Dawn runs through October 5. The party’s announced date and that security authorisation overlap. The available reports do not establish the march’s eventual turnout, its route, whether access restrictions will remain in place or how the authorities will respond on the day. Those questions matter both to supporters seeking to reach the capital and to residents whose travel was disrupted ahead of September 27.

The dispute follows the detention of Khan’s sisters before the planned protest, covered in NewsJaws’ earlier report on their jailing. For now, the confirmed change is the party’s decision to postpone its march while maintaining its demand for Khan’s release. PTI leaders present October 4 as the next protest date; the reported roadblocks and deployments describe preparations for the original date and do not establish present traffic conditions.