A day after his shocking arrest, which sparked violent nationwide protests, the former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan will appear in a special court at the capital's police headquarters on Wednesday to address graft accusations.
Hours after the strong military scolded the former international cricketer for saying a senior commander had been involved in a plan to assassinate him, Khan was arrested following months of political unrest.
The corps commander's mansion in Lahore was set on fire by some demonstrators, and the army's general headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi came under siege.
A mob in Peshawar destroyed the Chaghi monument, a sculpture in the shape of a mountain celebrating the site of Pakistan's first nuclear test.
On Tuesday night, police engaged in lengthy pitched skirmishes with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party supporters in cities all around the nation
Two fatalities from those conflicts, according to local media.
On Wednesday morning, tensions seemed to have subsided, but there was a heavy security presence around the city, especially beyond the so-called police lines where the special court will meet.
Authorities kept limiting access to social media websites like Twitter and Facebook while also ordering the closure of schools across the nation.
Farooq Bhatti, a van driver in Rawalpindi, told AFP on Wednesday that "further uncertainty has been created at a time we are already struggling to feed our children."
Everyone will be impacted by the violence, and nobody will benefit, but I doubt the decision-makers will give a damn.
Vice-chairman of the PTI Shah Mehmood Qureshi urged supporters to continue their demonstrations in a "lawful and peaceful manner," saying that party lawyers would file numerous appeals and petitions against Khan's detention.
military backlash
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the nation's main anti-corruption organization, filed the accusation that resulted in Khan's downfall on Tuesday. The NAB said that Khan had disregarded numerous court summonses.
Since his ouster in April, Khan has been charged with many offenses, a strategy that critics claim has been employed by previous Pakistani regimes to intimidate their rivals.
If found guilty, he might be prohibited from holding public office, which would keep him out of the elections planned for later this year.
The military issued a warning to Khan the day before his detention for making "baseless allegations" after he accused a senior commander of trying to assassinate him once more.
Khan's relationships with the military have seriously deteriorated, as seen by the condemnation that was delivered late on Monday. Khan's accession to power in 2018 was backed by the military, but it withdrew its support before a parliamentary vote of no confidence that resulted in his ouster the following year.
The senior army command, according to Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center's South Asia Institute, had little interest in repairing the rift with Khan.
This arrest most likely conveys the notion that no holds are sacred.
International reaction arrived soon.
At a news conference with British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on Tuesday in Washington, D.C Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the US wanted to "make sure that everything unfolds throughout Pakistan is following the supremacy of statute, with the laws of the nation."
We want to see true democracy there, cleverly presented.
Khan is calling with the coalition government to call early elections as Pakistan is hopelessly engaged in a political and economic crisis.
He has been particularly vociferous in his criticism of the established quo, and to avoid detention, he is reliant on the fervent backing of the enormous crowds that attend his public appearances.
But on Tuesday, during the scheduled routine hearing, the authorities pounced.
Numerous paramilitary rangers pushed Khan into an armored vehicle on the premises of the Islamabad High Court. Khan now has a significant limp after being shot during an attempted murder last year.
During a rally over the weekend in Lahore, Khan repeated his claims that senior intelligence official Major-General Faisal Naseer participated in an attempted assassination last year during which he suffered a knee injury.
The military's public relations Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) branch released an advertisement saying, "This unfounded and malicious accusation is extremely disappointing horrible, and unacceptable."
According to the authorities, a lone gunman who is in custody admitted to the attempted assassination in a video that was contentiously leaked to the media.
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