KHARIAN, Pakistan // Clashes broke out on Friday as protesters led in convoys by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan and a populist cleric advanced on the Pakistani capital.
Mr Khan and the preacher Tahir ul Qadri say the May 2013 general election that brought Nawaz Sharif to power in a landslide was rigged, and are demanding he resign as prime minister and hold new polls.
They plan to rally in Islamabad at the end of a “long march” – in reality a motorised cavalcade – which set off on Thursday from the eastern city of Lahore, about 300 kilometres away.
Police said activists from Mr Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party clashed with supporters of Mr Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) in the town of Gujranwala, about 200 kilometres south-east of Islamabad.
Mr Khan said shots were fired on his march, telling ARY television news: “They threw stones at us while standing at police vans. They fired bullets at us.”
However, police said there were no shots. “Workers of PTI and PML-N clashed in Gujranwala and threw stones at each other,” a police spokeswoman told AFP. “There was no firing incident.”
A group of up to 40 youths who were following the convoy and shouting slogans clashed with workers from Mr Khan’s party before being dispersed by police.
Both Mr Khan and Mr Qadri had originally planned for their marches to converge on Islamabad on Thursday, Pakistan’s independence day, but they made slow progress.
By Friday evening Mr Khan’s march was in the town of Kharian, still about 150km from Islamabad and slowed to a snail’s pace by PTI well-wishers.
The march led by Mr Qadri, head of his own Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) movement, had progressed better, but was still about 60km short of the capital, in the town of Gujjar Khan.
* Agence France-Presse