Islamabad: Except in the Pakistani capital, party leaders and supporters of Imran Khan held demonstrations across the country where hundreds of workers were arrested on Friday while protesting the inflated electricity bills and demanding the former prime minister’s release from jail.
After the government banned protests in Islamabad, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) approached the Islamabad High Court, urging it to order the administration to allow it to hold protests. The court, after hearing arguments, reserved its judgment.
The main opposition party, PTI, could not hold its much-publicised protest in the national capital after the government banned public gatherings. However, its ally, the rightwing Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), went ahead with its protest rally by defying the ban and claimed that police arrested several workers.
In Lahore, more than 150 workers of both parties were arrested by law enforcement agencies of the Punjab province.
Khan, the 71-year-old PTI founder has been incarcerated at the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi in multiple cases since August last year.
In Islamabad, the PTI had announced a countrywide protest for the release of Imran Khan and other arrested party leaders and workers, saying that it would rally in front of the National Press Club in the capital, while the JI planned to stage a sit-in at the famous F-Chowk facing the parliament building against the rising cost of electricity and rising prices of other commodities.
However, police imposed section 144, banning all kinds of gatherings, including protests in the federal capital, sealing the Red Zone for all entries. The zone houses key government offices and embassies.
“Any kind of protest or rally will not be allowed in the federal capital. No one will be allowed to violate Section 144 and strict action will be taken against the violators,” the Islamabad administration had warned.
Later, the PTI Islamabad unit president Amir Mughal issued a video message announcing that the party had called off its protest in Islamabad and rescheduled it for Monday.
Police also partially closed the Islamabad Highway at the Faizabad Interchange, which sits on the main entry point from Rawalpindi to Islamabad, to stop the protestors’ movement.
JI spokesperson Qaisar Sharif said in a statement that dozens of its workers, who were reaching Islamabad to take part in the anti-inflation protest, were taken into custody.
Condemning the action of the police, Sharif said that despite the Shehbaz Sharif government’s “fascist tactics” the JI workers would hold a sit-in at D-Chowk in Islamabad.
Separately, the Punjab Home Department imposed section 144 in the province to ban all protests and gatherings from July 26 to 29.
In Lahore, a senior police officer said: “Police have detained over 150 workers of JI and PTI from Lahore, Multan, Gujranwala and Faisalabad districts of Punjab so far. Most of the arrested belong to the JI.” JI chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said the government’s “fascist tactics” to suppress peaceful protesters would not succeed and claimed that peaceful resistance for the rights of the people and holding a sit-in is a “constitutional and democratic right.” JI supporters organised small gatherings at various places in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The party, in a post on X, said that its workers had “reached D-Chowk after surpassing all obstacles”, adding that police were arresting its workers while sharing a video of a person being forced into a police van.
Meanwhile, the PTI held small-scale protests in other cities across the country, including in Mirpur Mathelo, Moro, Lodhran, Muzaffargarh and Shangla, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur also addressed a public gathering in Bannu.
PTI also claimed that several party leaders were arrested ahead of nationwide protests and houses of scores of its leaders were raided.
So far, efforts by the PTI to hold big rallies have been thwarted by the authorities.
The call for today’s protest comes after the party has been reinvigorated by the Supreme Court judgment of July 12 which not only endorsed its status as a political party but also awarded it reserved seats.
Strengthened by the verdict, party secretary general Omar Ayub Khan asked his workers to prepare for elections. “A new election will be held after November as the current government has failed,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Republic and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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