Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said on Tursday that a handful of provocateurs are blocking roads in the capital Islamabad in the name of protest, adding that a clash was imminent between these provocateurs and the public.

The interior minister said this while addressing a press conference in Islamabad.

“These handful of rioters are blocking the roads in the name of protest. Around 10-15 people come in a vehicles and burn tyres to block roads.” He added that Imran Khan’s claims of bringing ‘a sea of people’ to Islamabad had not materialised.

He added that the police was protecting the protestors from the public. If the police did not intervene, ‘the public will deal with the protesters themselves,’ he added.

He accused the provincial police of aiding these provocateurs, saying that when the general public confronts these people disrupting traffic, the police sides with the rioters. He also said that if protesters were blocking highways within a province’s jursidiction, it was the provincial govt’s responsibility to stop them.

“The long march is actually an invasion of the federation by two provinces,” the minsiter said.

Accusing the protesters of exaggeration, Sanaullah said that these people make videoa after setting a tyre or two ablaze and then forward the same video claiming that a sea of protesters had showed up.

Rana Sanaullah said that Imran Khan claimed that he was bringing a revolution in the country buy could not even get an FIR registered, not even a fake one. “I was law minister for 10 years, there are hundreds of bogus FIRs registered each day,” he said.

This should remind them (PTI) where they really stand, the minister added.

He also said that no one apart from Naveed was involved in the attack on Imran Khan. ‘Naveed was highly motivated,’ Rana said.

The minister also said that investigations into Arshad Sharif’s death are pointing to the fact that it was indeed a case of murder. The initial version of the journalist being killed due to a mistaken identity has not been proved, the minsiter said.