LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) General Secretary Asad Umar has said that the PTI’s actual goal was ‘Haqeeqi Azadi’ (true independence); “every citizen of this country agrees that Pakistan is an independent country in true sense”.
He expressed these views while addressing a press conference on Friday; he was flanked by PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhary. He further said that everyone knows that the decisions are made by a few selected people behind closed doors. He averred that the people will make history today in the march and elucidated the routes of the march maintaining that the ultimate goal is ‘Haqeeqi Azadi’.
“The people are standing with their captain (PTI Chairman Imran Khan) and they should come to the march without any fear. The march will be peaceful which has started to achieve real independence. Exercising their constitutional rights, they will join the long march peacefully,” he added.
He reiterated that let the people elect their leader through transparent elections and that the elected leader will be answerable to the people; “no one else should have the right to run the country”. He urged the people to come out in large numbers if they wanted actual change in the country. “Imran Khan was the only leader who could bring about a much-needed change in Pakistan,” he added. To a question, he said in an application filed by the PTI to the Islamabad administration, it was stated that a series of sit-ins and meetings will start from November 4; “the Constitution allows us to hold meetings.” He averred that the only solution to the country’s current problems was new elections and “we are ready for negotiations if the government gives a date for the elections”.
Meanwhile, PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhary said that they were dedicating the long march to slain journalist Arshad Sharif and the media fraternity and paid tributes for his contribution to investigative journalism. He also condemned the arrest of journalist Chaudhry Ghulam Hussian and said how big a 78-year-old man can be a threat to anyone; “I request the authorities to show some respect to this man”.
He noted that under the coalition government, journalists were being brutally treated in Pakistan which was never seen in the past,” he added. Chaudhry also said that Arshad Sharif had appealed to the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take notice of this brutality. “If the SC had taken notice, Arshad would have been alive,” he added.
Talking about the march, he said the people should take part in this march even if they do not belong to the PTI. “The nation must reject decisions taken behind closed doors,” he added. He underlined that the future of Pakistan was dependent on the success and failure of today’s march. “If this movement fails, the nation will fail,” he added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022