Pakistan seizes trucks to block Imran Khan supporters from Islamabad
Stacks (STX)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
Yahoo.com reports that Pakistan is blocking access to Islamabad ahead of an opposition march on October 4 by seizing trucks and using their containers as barricades. The government is preventing supporters of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan from reaching the capital, causing a massive pileup of shipping containers at the port of Karachi. Truck drivers are refusing to travel north into Punjab because police have been seizing their vehicles and confiscating the containers for use in roadblocks.
Driver Javid ur Rehman described the journey as dangerous, noting that police seize vehicles and leave drivers distressed without compensation. Authorities requisitioned over 2,000 vehicles in September, many still loaded with cargo and held for days. The disruption affects key routes to Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and other cities, leaving containers stranded at the main trade gateway.
Transport operators face mounting bills, with demurrage charges reaching 30,000 to 40,000 rupees per container daily. Consumer prices rose 10.26% in September, while the transport price index climbed 27.43% year-on-year. Some drivers have halted journeys beyond Gujranwala, while others take alternative routes to avoid seizure. The opposition party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, had postponed its march from September 27 to October 4 to demand Khan's release.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for STX, measured when this story was written up on 2 October 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
STX spot trading shows a mixed immediate sentiment with a 1-hour buy ratio of 51.3% compared to a stronger 56.2% over the 4-hour window. The 24-hour buy ratio sits at 50.3%, indicating that buying pressure is slightly fading over the longer timeframe despite recent accumulation. Positive volume deltas of $3,759 (1h), $70,317 (4h), and $52,880 (24h) suggest that buyers are currently absorbing sell-side liquidity. Cumulative Volume Delta closed at +$95,678, confirming net buying pressure over the last day. This activity occurred across 109,729 trades with a total spot volume of $9,666,874. The data indicates a market that is actively accumulating but with diminishing intensity in the shortest timeframes.
The latest daily buy ratio of 53.8% sits at the 79th percentile of the last 322 days, against a median of 50.8% - stronger buying than most days.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for STX, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, STX experienced a 19.2% price increase with a volume delta of +$770,933. Today's 24-hour spot volume of $9,666,874 is 3.21 times the weekly average, marking this as an unusually active trading day. The 7-day average buy ratio of 52.6% is higher than today's 24-hour reading of 50.3% by 2.3 points. This suggests that while volume is surging, the proportion of buy-side pressure has cooled slightly compared to the weekly norm. Net buying occurred on 5 of the last 7 days, maintaining a generally bullish trend despite the slight dip in today's buy ratio.