ISLAMABAD, October 31: Police firing tear gas clashed Monday evening with thousands of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) supporters travelling towards Islamabad, where the party chief Imran Khan has vowed to stage a million-strong demonstration on November 2.
The clashes took place on the Peshawar-Islamabad motorway, as well as Swabi interchange and Attock border, as around 5,000 stick-wielding party workers tried to remove barricades put in place by police.
It was the latest confrontation before a planned lockdown of the capital on Wednesday by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. It is seeking Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s resignation over his children’s offshore bank accounts, revealed in the Panama Papers leak. Authorities in Punjab have also closed a motorway using shipping containers, as police and paramilitary forces stand guard around the highway.
PTI leaders Arif Alvi and Imran Ismail were released after a brief detention on Monday.
Singer Salman Ahmed released after brief detention
The two Karachi-based leaders were arrested from outside the Imran Khan’s residence in Bani Gala. Their release came after Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar ordered police to immediately release them.
Television footage showed Capital City Police dragging Alvi into a car as he tried to remove barriers to reach Imran’s residence in Islamabad.
Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) Sahibzada Hamid Raza on Monday announced all-out support for the PTI’s planned protest.
Addressing a press conference at the National Press Club, Raza criticised the Islamabad High Court’s decision whereby the court has directed the PTI to hold its protest in a designated place, Democracy Park and Speech Corner, and not to disrupt the public life in the capital.
The ministry of interior has warned that Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Pervez Khattak will not be allowed to enter the federal capital if he comes with armed men.
“In case of arriving in Islamabad with armed group he will be dealt as other agitators,” MoI spokesperson said. “If Khattak visits Islamabad of his own on Monday he will be welcomed and given protocol and security. However, he will be denied entry if he arrives here with armed group,” stated the spokesperson.
CM Pervez Khattak tripped on Monday as the stage he was using to address PTI workers collapsed. However, he did not sustain any injury in the incident.
Addressing the workers in Swabi, he said the imposition of Section 144 seemed an attempt to stop people from protesting against the corruption, loot and plunder of the rulers. “We will leave with discipline… Imran Khan has invited us all to Bani Gala and there is no law that can stop us from protesting,” the chief minister told workers before leaving for the PTI chief’s residence.
Khattak called upon the government to open blocked routes for K-P PTI workers and went on to ask the activists to surround police force if they attempt to arrest them.
Talking to Express News the K-P chief minister said: “We have not given a call for Islamabad’s lockdown, however, we have asked our workers to reach the capital to hold a peaceful protest.”-Agencies
