Showdown before shutdown
| Police clamp down on PTI workers | ‘Besieged’ Imran announces countrywide protest | Use of force against women invites wide condemnation
October 28, 2016
ISLAMABAD/RAWALPINDI - The law-enforcing agencies Thursday raided a gathering of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf activists, marking the beginning of a confrontation which was anticipated to begin a few days later.
Personnel of Frontier Constabulary (FC) aided by the local police baton charged scores of Insaf Students Federation (ISF) members in Sector E-11 before bundling dozens of them into police vans.
The police action, outside a marquee where PTI Youth Convention was to be held in the evening, came after the authorities banned all public gatherings in Islamabad for two months, ahead of PTI’s Nov 2 protest to demand Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif step down over Panama leaks.
Video images on local TV channels showed police in uniform beating PTI activists with batons and dragging them away to vehicles at venue.
A spokesman for the Islamabad district administration said the raid was to enforce Section 144 Cr Pc, imposed earlier in the day by Deputy Commissioner Mushtaq Ahmed, outlawing gatherings of more than five people.
“For any convention, you need to seek permission from the district administration, even if it is indoors,” said the spokesman, who said he could not be identified under protocol. “They have done a convention without permission… So police have carried out an operation there,” he added.
Responding to this development, a visibly enraged PTI chairman, Imran Khan gave a call for countrywide protests for today (October 27). Addressing a press conference, he said they had intended their Nov 2 dharna to be peaceful.
Later at night, a heavy contingent of FC reached Bani Gala and laid siege around the residence of PTI Chairman Imran Khan, sparking speculation that the opposition leader was being put to house arrest.
Law-enforcing agencies laid siege around the residence of PTI leader Jehangir Tareen too, earlier in the day, but left the place (in Sector F-6/3) without any action as Tareen was not there.
The opposition party claimed that around 150 of its workers were arrested from Sector E-11. Police also manhandled female workers of the PTI, something which drew sharp criticism even from other opposition parties.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Asad Umer - who were among the PTI leaders present at the raided place - called it a gross violation of their constitutional right to protest and an outright aggression.
“The government has proved that there is no democracy in Pakistan, it is a monarchy,” Asad told reporters from the scene.
“We will not be deterred by arrests and more people will join us on November 2,” PTI youth leader Nazish Altaf said.
The opposition leaders announced to approach Islamabad police chief against the ‘unjustified’ arrests of ISF members.
Overall, Thursday was a hectic day at political, judicial and administrative fronts with both the government and PTI justifying their decisions and actions.
The police raid at the PTI gathering came after it succeeded in getting a somewhat favourable order from the Islamabad High Court (IHC), which at a hearing on Thursday upheld the right to protest but directed for confining PTI’s upcoming protest to Parade Ground so that the routine life of citizens may not suffer.
“Nobody can deter us from our November 2 lockdown plan,” a defiant Imran said while talking to media soon after the IHC order. “This will be a decisive and historic gathering; people will come together with resolve to hold the prime minister accountable.”
Section 144 (Cr PC), imposed by the city administration, prohibits use of loudspeaker, all kinds of gatherings of five or more persons, processions/rallies and demonstrations at any public place, and carrying of firearms. Also, police barred hotel owners from entertaining PTI workers during the sit-in.
RAWALPINDI Clampdown
As in Islamabad, Rawalpindi administration also imposed Section 144 across the district for two days. However, Sheikh Rashid Shafique, the former Nazim and nephew of AML President Sheikh Rashid, vowed to hold public gathering outside Lal Haveli at every cost.
Police clamped down on the houses of leaders and workers of PTI and Awami Muslim League (AML) of Sheikh Rashid in a bid to stop the opposition parties from holding a public gathering at Lal Haveli today (Saturday). The public gathering was to serve as a warm-up and planning session for the November 2 lockdown plan.
According to sources and party leaders, two brothers of PTI MPA Ijaz Khan Jazzi and a local office bearer of AML had been held in Wednesday night raids. But a large numbers of other leaders of the opposition parties went underground, police sources said. The opposition parties claimed that around 500 of their members had been picked up by police.
In a televised speech Imran Khan said he would risk arrest on Friday (today) by defying the ban to attend the Lal Haveli gathering. “Then, whatever (the government) does, we will see!”
A senior police officer, seeking anonymity, told The Nation that following the government instructions they would seal the whole city to stop the flood of political workers to Islamabad to thwart capital lockdown.
“Right now, we are facing shortage of required personnel. The city police officer has requested for 2,000 more cops but the higher authorities have so far not provided extra force,” he said.
Published in The Nation newspaper on 28-Oct-2016
http://nation.com.pk/national/28-Oct-2016/showdown-before-shutdown
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