ISLAMABAD
\nThousands of people rallied across Pakistan on the night falling between Sunday and Monday to protest the ouster of Imran Khan after he lost a no-confidence vote in the National Assembly which his party described as part of an elaborate foreign conspiracy to bring down his administration.
\nEarlier in the day, the former prime minister told people it was time to launch another \u201cfreedom struggle\u201d against foreign-sponsored \u201cregime change\u201d in the country, adding only the people of Pakistan could have defended its sovereignty and democracy. As Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers and supporters gathered in different cities, he applauded the \u201camazing outpouring of support\u201d in a Twitter post.
\n\u201cNever have such crowds come out so spontaneously and in such numbers in our history, rejecting the imported [government] led by crooks,\u201d Khan said while sharing a video of his supporters in Lahore on Twitter which was shared by his followers.
\nTens of thousands of people also gathered near Karachi\u2019s Millennium Mall in an unprecedented show of power by the PTI party which had won a majority of seats from the city during the last general elections.
\nMore recently, however, analysts believed Khan\u2019s popularity had dwindled, though the number of participants in the protest demonstration in Karachi stunned both the organizers and the PTI rivals.
\nThe rally was addressed by Governor Sindh Imran Ismail and a PTI provincial leader Haleem Adil Sheikh along with others for several hours. Most of them said that Khan\u2019s was a result of an international conspiracy since he was trying to pursue an independent foreign policy and raised his voice for the Muslim world.
\nThe crowd chanted anti-American and anti-opposition slogans in response.
\nIn Islamabad, former federal ministers Asad Umar, Murad Saeed and Shibli Faraz led a rally at the capital\u2019s F-9 Park where thousands, including women and children, gathered in response to Khan\u2019s call. The women were holding placards that read: \u201cImported government is not acceptable.\u201d A senior PTI leader in the province of Punjab, Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed, also addressed a huge rally at the Liberty Market roundabout.
\nSimilar demonstration was also organized in Rawalpindi which was addressed by former interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed near Lal Haveli.
\nPTI workers and supporters came out in large numbers in various districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which has remained a major stronghold for the political party for nearly a decade. Apart from protests in Peshawar, Noshehra, Malakand and Mardan, Pakistanis living abroad also came out in Khan\u2019s support in Dubai, London and other cities of the world.
\nKhan did not participate or address any of the rallies in Pakistan, though he thanked the protesters in a social media post for supporting him.
\n\u201cThank you to all Pakistanis for their amazing outpouring of support & emotions to protest against US-backed regime change abetted by local Mir Jafars to bring into power a coterie of pliable crooks all out on bail,\u201d he wrote while making a reference to a local commander who betrayed an 18th century Muslim ruler Tipu Sultan by siding with the British. \u201cShows Pakistanis at home & abroad have emphatically rejected this.\u201d
\nThe former prime minister and his party have accused the opposition leaders of plundering the country, saying that they have corruption references pending against them. The opposition has always denied these allegations while claiming that the accountability drive launched by Khan\u2019s administration was politically motivated. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD Thousands of people rallied across Pakistan on the night falling between Sunday and Monday to protest the ouster of Imran Khan after he lost a no-confidence vote in the National Assembly which his party described as part of an elaborate foreign conspiracy to bring down his administration. Earlier in the day, the former prime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254380,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[252,3790],"class_list":{"0":"post-254357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news","8":"tag-freedom","9":"tag-rally"},"yoast_head":"\n