Khan was forced to quit after his party lost a vote of confidence in parliament in April. Since then, he has been holding rallies across the country, calling for new elections.

Neelofer Raja, who teaches at a college in Islamabad, is a Khan supporter and has not missed a PTI rally in the capital since the fall of the PTI-led government. She believes the cases against Khan are not being pursued by the government, but “somebody else is pulling the strings from behind”.

Wasim says the Pakistani institutions are singling out Khan to suppress his voice. “The cases against him are all a pressure tactic to silence him,” he said.

Sana Hassan, a young medical doctor in Islamabad, feels that, of all the political choices in the country, Khan is “still the best bet”.

“Removing him was unfair and perhaps something planned. I will blame the establishment for not supporting Imran Khan when he needed them the most,” she told Al Jazeera.

Political observers say the high-handed tactics by Pakistani authorities will cause more friction in an already divided society.

“Khan is the most popular leader at the moment. Other political forces want to work with him to break this deadlock, but he has repeatedly said that he is willing to talk to terrorist elements but will not sit with his political rivals,” she told Al Jazeera over the telephone.

Amber Rahim Shamsi, the director of the Karachi-based Centre for Excellence in Journalism (CEJ) says the current coalition government has demonstrated as much apathy for political rights and suppression of critics as the last government headed by Khan did.

However, she added, Khan had himself previously used “unproven allegations” against rival politicians to “ingratiate himself with the military establishment and the discontented urban middle class”.

“It is a tactic he is now deploying against the army chief and other military officials – once his patrons – without naming them directly, so that he can maintain plausible deniability and keep a door to power corridors open,” she said.

Asfandyar Mir, an analyst with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), says it is likely that the current political tensions will persist until November.

“In case there is pressure on the army chief internally to let up on the confrontation with Khan, one possible signal is an early announcement of a new army chief, perhaps in the next few weeks,” he told Al Jazeera.

Ahsan Butt, professor of international relations at the US-based George Mason University, says these are “dangerous times” in Pakistani politics as both Khan and the military establishment are opting for “confrontation” and “neither side is backing down”.

“The primary culprit in this entire mess is the Pakistani military establishment for its insistence to engineer political outcomes and not let the political process play out for itself. This should be a lesson for them to stop trying to stage-manage politics,” he told Al Jazeera.