Former foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi was arrested overnight on Wednesday, said the Islamabad police.

“Islamabad Police arrested Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, Fawad Chaudhry, Jamshed Iqbal Cheema, Falknaz Chitrali, Musrat Jamsheed Cheema and Malika Bukhari,” it said in a tweet. “All arrests have been made in compliance with legal requirements.”

The police said that arrests were made under “threat of breach of peace” against those inciting arson and violent protests under the plan.

Qureshi was reportedly arrested from Gilgit-Baltistan House in Islamabad. Earlier PTI denied reports that he had been arrested from the Islamabad High Court premises.

Moreover, Senior PTI lawmaker Ali Mohammad Khan was also detained by law enforcement agencies on Thursday.

The Islamabad police added that 80 more people were arrested for damaging government property.

“Among them are the accused who set fire to Tarnool railway station, opened fire, and pulled tracks. Earlier, 108 people were arrested for arson,” it added.

The development comes a day after the party’s senior leaders Asad Umar and Fawad Chaudhry were arrested in the federal capital.

Umar was arrested at the Islamabad High Court’s premises at around noon on Wednesday. Fawad Chaudhry was arrested outside the Supreme Court after being inside the building since 11am.

The violence sparked by Khan’s arrest on Tuesday by the country’s anti-graft agency has aggravated instability in the country of 220 million people as it grapples with a severe economic crisis and a delay to an International Monetary Fund bailout since November.

Protesters have stormed military buildings and ransacked the residence of a top army general in the eastern city of Lahore.

Other state buildings and assets have been attacked and set ablaze by protesters. At least five people have died in the violence.

The federal government Wednesday approved requests from two of Pakistan’s four provinces - Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, both Khan strongholds - and the federal capital Islamabad to deploy troops to restore order.

The Islamabad police said on early on Thursday that troops have reached the capital city.

Police have arrested more than 1,300 protesters in Khan’s home province of Punjab for violence.

Separately, Khan was indicted by a Pakistani court in an unrelated case on Wednesday for unlawfully selling state gifts during his premiership between 2018 and 2022.

The corruption cases against Khan are two of more than 100 cases registered against him since his ouster in April 2022 in a parliamentary no confidence vote. He has not slowed his campaign against the ouster even after being wounded in a November attack.