Patriot Report
Islamabad: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chairman Imran Khan Thursday gave a call for countrywide protests after PTI’s youth convention in Islamabad was stormed by police contingent and scores of party workers were arrested.
Television footage showed police dragging workers of PTI, as per report women workers of the party were also manhandled by police. It is pertinent to mention here that the youth convention was taking place inside a marquee and was not a public gathering.
The development came in the same day when Section-144 was imposed in Islamabad which disallowed gathering of people across the city and permitted the law enforcement agencies to subject the violators to penalties.
Imran, while addressing a press conference following the police raid on party’s youth convention said the planned sit-in on November 2 was planned to be peaceful.
‘We told the government that we would remain peaceful if they had remained peaceful. Now the movement will take a different direction,’ said the PTI chairman.
He reiterated the call for countrywide protests on Friday and said the police can arrest him if they want ‘under Section 144’. Imran also questioned the current democratic system in the country and said, ‘What kind of a democracy is in Pakistan when we are jailed for practicing our democratic right’.
Following the PTI chief’s press conference, PTI workers took to the streets in different cities of the country and held sit-ins at major thoroughfares. Cities where PTI workers were staging sit-ins are Karachi, Multan, Peshawar and other major cities.
Earlier in the evening, PTI vice-chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi alleged the government had arrested hundreds of its workers and police tortured the female workers of the party as well.
‘Hundreds of PTI workers were arrested and female workers were tortured by the police,’ claimed Qureshi. ‘We are going to meet to IG Islamabad and discuss the situation.’
Police transferred the arrested PTI workers through police vans to Police station Kohsaar and Golra, also sealing the hall where the convention was being held. The arrests were made under Section 144.