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ISLAMABAD, May 11 – Pakistani authorities arrested a senior leader of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party on Thursday as the government deployed the army<\/a> to help end deadly unrest sparked by Khan’s arrest three days ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who served as foreign minister in Imran Khan’s cabinet during his four year premiership, was arrested overnight, a statement on his Twitter profile said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two other senior leader of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, Asad Umar and Fawad Chaudhry, were also arrested on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The violence sparked by Khan’s arrest<\/a> 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<\/a> and a delay to an International Monetary Fund bailout since November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Protesters have stormed military buildings and ransacked the residence of a top army general in the eastern city of Lahore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other state buildings and assets have been attacked and set ablaze by protesters. At least five people have died in the violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Islamabad police said on early on Thursday that troops have reached the capital city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Police have arrested more than 1,300 protesters in Khan’s home province of Punjab for violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n