A senior vice president of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice, PTI) has quit the party while its secretary general has also stepped down from his role, marking another blow to the embattled ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan.
With their resignations, Chaudhry and Umar join more than two dozen other PTI leaders who have either left their positions or quit the party since his arrest earlier this month.
On Tuesday, former Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari quit PTI after being detained several times since May 12, when she was first arrested over the deadly protests that followed Khan’s arrest.
Chaudhry and Umar were also arrested in Islamabad on May 10 on charges related to public order.
Among others, Nadia Sher Khan, a former PTI lawmaker from Imran Khan's home state of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, announced that she was resigning from the party.
As more politicians left the party, Khan tweeted: “We had all heard about forced marriages in Pakistan but for PTI a new phenomenon has emerged, forced divorces.”
Khan has called for an independent investigation over the violence and maintained that he or his party is not against the army establishment.
However, analysts say Pakistan's military is trying to destroy former Prime Minister Imran Khan's support prior to the upcoming elections,
There have been mass arrests, intimidation of the press and military courts introduced to try civilians alleged to have targeted government and military buildings.
Khan's brief arrest earlier this month sparked days of street protests freighted with anger at the powerful army perceived to have orchestrated his downfall.
The current administration led by Shabaz Sharif has labelled the violence "anti-state", justifying huge roundups and the revival of army courts to try civilians who targeted government and military buildings
Moreover, Journalists in Karachi told AFP they were being sent streams of briefings by the army public relations wing targeting Khan's reputation. "We get a lot of smearing news from the 'big brothers' on WhatsApp, which are supposed to be off the record and we are obliged to broadcast without any attribution," a TV reporter said on condition of anonymity, using a euphemism for the army.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Amnesty International have said prominent pro-PTI reporter Imran Riaz Khan has been missing since being abducted by military intelligence agencies two weeks ago.