Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan was sent back to Islamabad from the Karachi International Airport by the provincial authorities on Wednesday. Khan, who was supposed to address his party Tehreek-e-Insaf's rallies in the city, was turned back due to a 30-day ban on his entry.
"There is a ban on him," said Waseem Akhtar, the home affairs advisor of the Sindh government. He added that the former Pakistan cricket captain was told about the ban before he boarded the flight to Karachi and he should have upheld the law of the land instead of trying to defy it.
The restriction on Khan's entry, originally ordered after the May 12 violence in the city, has been regularly reimposed over the past few months.
The authorities said they feared a threat to the law and order situation after Khan filed a case in a British court for the deportation of Mutahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain, currently living in exile in the United Kingdom.
Akhtar accused Hussain of being responsible for the death of over 40 people in the May 12 clashes, which broke out between supporters of MQM and rival party workers.
Police also arrested the Sindh chief of the party Zubair Khan and detained dozens of Tehreek-e-Insaf workers who were trying to reach the airport to welcome Khan.
But scores of activists managed to reach the airport and chanted slogans against the federal and provincial government. Party workers said that the police used force to clear them from the airport. Khan, who is highly critical of President Pervez Musharraf's regime, has said that he is a free citizen of Pakistan and it is illegal to ban his entry into any city