Islamabad: As anti-government protests kickstarted in Pakistan, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Mufti Kifayatullah was arrested in the capital of Islamabad on Sunday for allegedly issuing inflammatory statements against the national institution.

JUI-F Deputy Secretary Information Aslam Ghouri has confirmed the news saying that Kifayatullah was taken into custody from Islamabad’s Sector E-11, reported Geo News.

The arrest comes as the government struck a deal with JUI-F allowing the latter to conduct a rally to proceed.

According to the agreement, the government will not stand in the protesters’ way and “neither will the participants face any difficulty in getting food delivered”.

Kifayatullah is the third leader detained in the capital before ‘Azadi March’ called by JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

Last Monday, police arrested Maulana Shafiq-ur-Rehman and Maulana Mohammad Irshad from Shams Colony and seized banners for the JUI-F sit-in from their possession.

All major opposition parties including the of jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and the Pakistan People’s Party of former president Asif Ali Zardari have announced their support.

Fazl has demanded Khan’s resignation, alleging that the election held in July 2018 was rigged to help his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

Meanwhile, shipping firms in Pakistan have accused authorities in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of forcibly seizing their containers for using them to block the entry of demonstrators to capital Islamabad ahead of the ‘Azadi March’.

“Over the last three days, police have forcibly taken possession of more than 3,000 containers in different parts of the country,” Hakimullah Khan, president of the Containers Association in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa told Anadolu Agency.

Hakimullah Khan has claimed that the owners of the seized containers have faced huge financial loses as a result of the authorities’ actions.

On the other hand, Islamabad’s deputy commissioner Hamza Shafqaat has said that the containers have not been seized but hired from their owners for which they shall be duly paid.

“We have not taken a single container by force,” said Hamza Shafqaat, Islamabad’s deputy commissioner. “We have hired all containers from the owners and we will pay for them,” he added.

The Azadi March has been announced by Jamiat Ulema-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Fazlur Rahman in a bid to topple the government, which Rahman believes came to power through “fake elections”. The Pakistan government has decided to let the march proceed as long as parameters laid out by courts for lawful protest are not breached.