PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Inasaf (PTI) vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi on Tuesday condemned the late-night harassment of party workers in Punjab and police raids on their houses ahead of the long march.
Addressing a press conference along with party secretary general Asad Umar, he said there was no justification for police brutality and crackdown on peaceful workers of his party.
He said the march would go ahead as planned and former prime minister Imran Khan would lead a rally from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Islamabad. “Protest is our legal and constitutional right,” he said.
He said PTI did not want any confrontation with law enforcement in Islamabad but rather would inform the government of legal, constitutional and democratic solutions which were to hold fresh and fair elections.
Qureshi said a Supreme Court verdict ensuring the right to protect already exists and expressed hope that courts would provide justice to PTI.
He also urged PTI leaders and supporters in Punjab to avoid arrests and “go underground” or move to the houses of their relatives if they had to. “Use public transport or any other means and reach Islamabad.
“And if you find hindrances along the way, turn every road, every street and every corner into Srinagar Highway,” the former foreign minister said, promising that “whatever may come”, the programme for the march would stay the same.
The march, he asserted, was not just restricted to the PTI anymore and had transformed into a national movement.
Hence “Imran Khan will lead the rally from Peshawar tomorrow (May 25) and reach Islamabad,” he vowed. “Even if they put barriers, we will meander our way into the capital.”
The former foreign minister said the PTI government in its 3.5 years of rule allowed rallies, long-march and sit-ins in Islamabad without creating any hurdles, or restrictions in the way of opposition parties.
Criticising the actions of the federal, Punjab and Sindh governments against PTI, he said that so-called champions of democracy and human rights now taking refuge by imposing sections 144 and 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO).
Speaking on the occasion, Umar said that police illegal actions had further emboldened the courage and spirit of PTI workers.
He said that through the use of force, the government could block the entire country and could not run the affairs of the country.
