Four paramilitary personnel were killed in Pakistan on Tuesday during a clash between security forces and protesters seeking the release of the former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
The paramilitary personnel were called in to block the marchers.
Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the troops were run over by vehicles in a convoy of protesters.
A Reuters witness said hundreds of protesters reached D-Chowk in the capital Islamabad, a square near the country’s legislature.
This has been a historic rallying point for protests.
The interior ministry said the Army was deployed to protect diplomatic missions in the fortified red zone area where many government buildings and embassies are located.
It added that a curfew could be imposed.
“It is not a peaceful protest. It is extremism,” the Prime Minister said while condemning the bloodshed.
He said that the bloodshed was aimed at achieving “evil political designs”.
The interior ministry confirmed the killings, but did not say who was responsible.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party has planned to hold a sit-in at D-Chowk until their demands are met.
The protesters were armed with steel rods, slingshots and sticks and were setting fire to trees and grass as they marched.
Reuters witnesses heard firing around the protests though it was not clear who was responsible.
PTI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the government’s accusations.
Thousands of Khan’s supporters broke through security barriers on roads blocked with shipping containers as they responded to his call for a sit-in protest.
Calling for the government’s resignation among other demands, the protesters ransacked vehicles and set a police kiosk on fire.
The protesters also attacked and wounded journalists at two separate locations, people from two media houses told Reuters.
The government met Khan’s aides to try to calm the protests, but the attempt did not succeed, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said.
On Monday, a police officer was killed and dozens wounded in clashes as the protest approached Islamabad.
Khan’s party has called for a rollback of Constitutional amendments.
It says that the government made these amendments to handcuff the judiciary.
Bushra Bibi, Khan’s wife and a key aide, Ali Amin Gandapur, who is the Chief Minister of the PTI stronghold Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, led the march that wound its way into the capital.
The protest march, which Khan has described as the “final call”, is one of many his party has held to seek his release since he was jailed in August last year.
The party’s most recent protest in Islamabad in October turned violent.
Voted out of power by the Parliament in 2022 after he fell out with Pakistan’s powerful military, Khan faces several charges.
These allegations range from corruption to instigation of violence, all of which he and his party deny.
The military, which plays an outsized role in politics, is the kingmaker in the South Asian nation of 241 million.
Candidates backed by Khan’s party won the most seats in general elections in February, but a coalition cobbled together at the 11th hour and led by Sharif took power.
Khan and the PTI say the polls were rigged following a military-backed crackdown to keep him out of power.
The Army has denied charges of election manipulation.
Authorities have enforced a security lock down over the last three days and barricaded major roads with shipping containers
Paramilitary personnel and police in riot gear are patrolling streets in Islamabad and highways in the eastern part of Punjab province have been blocked.
(With inputs from Reuters)
