ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman and former prime minister Imran Khan on Thursday gave a six-day ultimatum to the coalition government to dissolve the assemblies and announce fresh elections or else he would be back in the capital to throw them out with ‘a sea of people’ from all over the country.
Addressing his supporters at Jinnah Avenue, after previous day’s clashes between his workers and the police and law enforcement agencies, he alleged that the government is unable to run the government, “as you have not come to run the government but just to end your corruption cases.” He said: “If you failed to take a decision with respect to our demand within six days, then we would come again to Islamabad with the whole nation as this time as per the directive of the Supreme Court no one could erect hurdles in the way of peaceful protest.”
Khan said that he had decided that he will stage a sit-in in the capital till the ‘imported government’ dissolves assemblies and give him a date for fresh elections, the brutalities he observed in the past 24 hours show that the government is taking the nation towards anarchy. The government was trying to create hatred between the nation and our police as they are afraid of the public, he said.
He further said that the government would be happy if he staged a sit-in in Islamabad as it would lead to clashes between the people and police and the army. They used Rangers personnel against us like we are traitors or come to street to create anarchy, he said.
The former premier said that we have come here to unite the nation and not to divide them.
Imran Khan thanked the apex court for taking notice of the raids and arrest of the PTI workers and leaders by the government to stop their Azadi march. He further said that there is a huge responsibility on the judges of the Supreme Court. He asked where in a democracy peaceful protests were not allowed and demonstrators had to face tear-gas shelling, police raids, and arrests. Three workers of the PTI have been killed in Karachi, he said.
The PTI chairman said that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and other political parties staged a march during his government but they did not create any hurdle or fired teargas at their workers. “Today, I wanted justice from the apex court and the lawyer community for his nation”, he said.
He said that the government has appointed corrupt people on key posts. “I am again asking the judiciary to save your Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). In the future, no FIA officer will investigate the powerful people if he will meet the same end as Dr Muhammad Rizwan,” he added.
He said that the whole nation was looking to the judiciary after what had happened in the country during the past 48 hours.
Thousands of supporters of PTI, who had gathered at D-Chowk, dispersed peacefully after Khan addressed them.
The district administration also opened roads and removed shipping containers, as well as, barricades from all the roads in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The administration reopened Jinnah Avenue, the main protest venue, and all other roads in Islamabad, including Srinagar Highway and Islamabad Expressway.
The main Murree Road in Rawalpindi has also been reopened for both sides of traffic.
However, the district administration did not remove containers from all entry points of Red Zone and entry to Red Zone was only allowed from Margalla Roads till the filling of this report.
Meanwhile, the capital police have registered two separate FIRs against 150 workers of the PTI for setting fire at Jinnah Avenue and damaging a Metro station at Kohsar police station.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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