Salman Akram Raja, the slick-haired lawyer who’s quickly climbed the ranks in PTI, tweeted something that caught my attention. I am paraphrasing what he said yesterday: “Smart folks know that fighting oppression takes more than just showing up and getting arrested. Sure, I could’ve joined the crowd at D Chowk, gotten locked up, and spent some quiet time reflecting in a cell. But that would’ve been a waste of the trust that’s been placed in me.”

Meanwhile, Ali Amin Gandapur, the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, made quite a dramatic entrance into the provincial assembly after mysteriously disappearing from Islamabad the day before. In typical bombastic Gandapur fashion, he bragged about slipping away from the police in the capital, claiming he pulled off a Houdini act and made it back to Peshawar. 

No one’s buying it, though. 

Between these two leaders’ statements, it’s clear that, for those at the top, politics is just a game of power. Meanwhile, the workers on the ground? They're just cannon fodder for the leadership’s ambitions.

This past weekend, tensions hit a boiling point in Islamabad. Clashes broke out between supporters of ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan and security forces, grinding the city to a halt. Reports say at least 500 protesters were arrested, including two of Khan’s sisters, and a police officer lost his life. PTI, of course, claimed the number of arrests was more like 800. The crowd was out there demanding Khan's release and calling for the government to back down on some controversial judicial reforms, which would pretty much gut the Supreme Court’s power.

The government, not taking any chances, went into full lockdown mode earlier in the week. Shipping containers blocked off key roads, turning Islamabad into a fortress. Cops and paramilitary units were deployed. 

Gandapur had promised to lead a massive demonstration from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa into the capital on October 4.

Since Khan was ousted in 2022, Pakistan’s been stuck in a political crisis. He is still super popular, and his supporters are relentless in their push to get him out of jail.

But this latest show of force by the government wasn’t just about controlling protests. With the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit just around the corner on October 15 and 16, the stakes were high. Foreign dignitaries will come into town, and the government vowed it won’t let the protests mess up Pakistan’s reputation. Its actions of going into overkill, however, have done the exact opposite.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi kept warning all week that anyone breaking the law would face the consequences. “We won’t tolerate any disruptions, especially not with such an important international event happening,” Naqvi declared on TV.

Gandapur, though, wasn’t deterred. Surrounded by his supporters, armed with cranes and ambulances, he started marching toward the capital on Friday. The rally ran into resistance quickly, with police firing tear gas, but the protesters, though smaller in numbers than expected, kept moving forward. By Saturday morning, they were still clashing with security forces in Islamabad and nearby Rawalpindi.

Meanwhile, in Lahore, it was the same story. PTI supporters butted heads with the police, and paramilitary troops were called in to control the chaos.

But then came a plot twist. 

By Saturday afternoon, Gandapur and his convoy slipped through the outer barricades and made it into Islamabad without much trouble. Once inside, things got weird. Gandapur showed up briefly among the protesters, but instead of confronting the police or heading toward the Red Zone, he ducked into the provincial building of KP. Security forces quickly surrounded the place, and rumors started flying that Gandapur had been arrested. PTI leaders jumped on it, with Omar Ayub Khan tweeting that Gandapur was in custody. The KP CM had been abducted, made a ‘missing person,’ the PTI claimed in unison. 

Turns out, none of that was true. Gandapur later reappeared back in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, leaving everyone scratching their heads.

The weekend ended with PTI supporters licking their wounds, having spent days battling police and posting messages on social media about how victory was just around the corner. Now, many are turning on their leadership, calling them sellouts who betrayed Imran Khan. Some are swearing to regroup and make another run at the capital.

It’s the same old story: rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.