Cargo piles up at Karachi port as Pakistan seizes containers to block Imran Khan supporters

Shipping containers are piling up at Pakistan’s main port of Karachi as authorities seize lorries and containers to barricade roads into Islamabad ahead of a planned October 4 march by supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.

Truckers are refusing to drive north, fearing their vehicles will be confiscated and the containers used as blockades against the protest by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. “Right now, going toward Punjab is like committing suicide,” said driver Javid ur Rehman, 35, who has halted such journeys. “The police seize the vehicles and snatch the containers, and then we are left distressed.”

Steel shipping containers packed with sand and welded together have lined the roads into Islamabad for weeks, in preparation against the march — postponed from September 27 — demanding Khan’s release. Khan, a former cricket star, was jailed in 2023 after being ousted by parliament; all convictions but one have been suspended or overturned, with appeals pending.

“This is not the way to stop protests,” said Rana Mohammad Aslam, president of the Karachi Goods Carrier association. Authorities began stopping vehicles around September 5, weeks before the original date for the march. Police requisitioned more than 2,000 vehicles in September, many still loaded with cargo and held for days with little or no compensation.

Routes to Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Peshawar and Attock are affected, and daily demurrage charges on a single seized container can run to 30,000–40,000 rupees ($110–$150), Aslam said. Pakistan’s home, information, commerce and finance ministries, Punjab police and the provincial home department did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The strain comes as consumer prices rose 10.26% in September from a year earlier and the transport price index climbed 27.43%, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.