Pakistan was on the edge today after opposition leader Imran Khan called on his supporters to march on the heavily-guarded 'Red Zone' in the capital and cleric Tahir-ul Qadri said he will set up an alternative Parliament to force Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign and hold fresh elections.
"Today InshaAllah r peaceful non-violent Azadi March will move on 2 Constitution Ave.I will lead the March myself. Defining moment 4 Pakistan," Khan tweeted.
"Our Azadi March is constitutional & democratic," the cricketer-turned-politician, who spent the night in a shipping container at the site of the sit-in, said.
The government has so far forbidden protesters from breaching the Red Zone housing key state buildings like Supreme Court of Pakistan, Parliament House, the President and the Prime Minister's residences and other important buildings including embassies of various countries.
Khan accuses Sharif's PML-N party of vote-rigging in the 2013 election and has called on him to stand down. Sharif's party won that election by a landslide in what was Pakistan's first peaceful transfer of power between two civilian democratic governments.
In the 2013 polls, Sharif's PML-N had won 190 out of 342 seats.
