Rioting all day across Pakistan. One sibling trapped in Islamabad, one using all sorts of feints to get to the airport in Lahore for work in in Karachi (and then to leave the airport). A parent trapped in the ancestral village where he had planned to be overnight, but has been unable to leave because the Motorway back to Lahore is blocked. The day was full of rumours: that Asia Bibi had been put on the Exit Control List and prevented from leaving the country, that the government was sponsoring a request for review of the Supreme Court decision, that the army was planning a major country-wide operation to quash the rioting and pick up the leaders. All false, what a dispiriting day after the brief uplift brought about by Imran’s decisive speech last night. That moment of decision was followed by his leaving on a scheduled visit to China while his partymembers showed their usual incompetence by giving conflicting statements of government action and showing themselves completely unable to handle what was going on.
I spent the day inside, working. A trip to Islamabad in the next week now looks very likely. I did finally wash all my clothes from the trek, which is an immense relief.