Barrister Gohar, Marwat arrested as police book PTI leaders for violating 'peaceful assembly' law

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad police arrested Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Barrister Gohar and party lawmaker Sher Afzal Marwat outside the Parliament House building just a day after the embattled party staged a power show in the federal capital.

The federal capital police said PTI leaders Omar Ayub Khan and Zartaj Gul Wazir would also be taken into custody.

Marwat resisted the arrest and asked the police to show arrest warrant.

Heavy contingents of police were deployed outside the parliament while all entry and exit routes to the Red Zone were also closed from D-Chowk, Nadra Chowk, Serena, and Marriott, except for Margala Road.

However, PTI MNA Ali Muhammad Khan was not taken into custody by the police when he departed from the parliament.

Marwat was arrested for violating regulations devised under a new law —Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, sources told Geo News, adding that the PTI lawmaker was accused of clashing with police personnel a day earlier.

Alongside Omar and Zartaj, more PTI leaders including Naeem Haider Panjutha, Amir Mughal, Hammad Azhar, Khalid Khursheed, and Kanwal Shauzab would also be arrested, the sources said.

Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) Chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza and PTI leaders Zain Qureshi, Sheikh Waqas Akram, Naseem-ur-Rehman, Zubair Khan and others were arrested from the Parliament House, say the sources.

The sources privy to the matter, however, claimed that CM Gandapur left for Peshawar from Islamabad.   

They added that Islamabad police were expected to launch a crackdown against the former ruling party’s Punjab leaders who attended yesterday’s power show. It emerged that Islamabad police formally informed the Punjab top officials regarding the actions.

In a separate action, Shoaib Shaheen was also arrested from his residence.

Police filed cases against several leaders from the Imran-founded party under newly-enacted Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, at Noon and Sangjani police stations.

28 local leaders including Seemabia Tahir and Raja Basharat were also nominated in the cases.

The first information report (FIR) stated that the charged PTI workers had attacked the police teams with batons and pelted stones who tried to stop them from violating the Islamabad rally’s route.

It added that police personnel deployed on security duties resorted to tear gas shelling and nabbed 17 party activists from the scene.

The PTI staged its much-hyped power show in Islamabad with party workers and police clashed on Chungi No 26, on the outskirts of the capital, after the rally participants allegedly violated the designated routes for the public gathering in Sangjani.

The federal capital police claimed that the PTI supporters’ insistence to use route set for the general public led to clash with the law enforcers.

The police officials also fired tear gas shells and baton charged the PTI supporters after the party workers resorted to stone pelting.

'CM Gandapur not in contact since 6pm'

Amid ongoing crackdown against the PTI leaders, Advisor to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister on Information Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif said that the provincial chief executive was not in contact since 6pm.

Speaking to Geo News programme "Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath", the KP CM spokesperson said that Gandapur told him over phone at 3pm that he was going to Islamabad for a meeting.

"Since then, Gandapur's phone has been off and his close staff’s contact numbers are also unreachable since 6pm," he added.

"Has anyone witnessed a precedent of arresting an elected chief minister," he questioned.

The CM's aide asked authorities to file a case against Gandapur if he had done anything wrong.

Commenting over the arrests of the PTI leaders, Saif said that such moves could not crush the former ruling party except for denting the democracy in the country.

"Senior parliamentarians were arrested like criminals. We will not compromise and continue our struggle," he added.

Slamming the government, the politico said that there was no solid reason to begin a crackdown on the basis of Gandapur's speech during the Islamabad rally.

He was of the view that the KP CM delivered an "emotional speech" as the current rulers seized power via "illegal means".

CM Gandapur, in his speech yesterday, gave a two-week ultimatum to the coalition government to release the party founder Imran Khan besides pledging to expand the anti-government movement to Punjab.

"If the founder of PTI is not legally released within one to two weeks, we will have him freed ourselves," the chief minister had said.

Bill to regulate public gatherings

The Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, had sailed through the Senate and the National Assembly amid the opposition protests a few days ahead of the Imran-founded party’s Islamabad rally which increased the powers of the federal capital’s local authorities to control public gatherings.

President Asif Ali Zardari signed the bill into law just a day before the PTI’s rally.

The new bill empowers the district magistrate to regulate and ban public assemblies in the federal capital, proposing a punishment of up to three years or/and an unspecified fine to the members of an "unlawful assembly".

It also proposed that repeat offenders will be liable to imprisonment for a term that may extend to 10 years.

The bill says the ban on assembly under the proposed law would remain in force for the duration specified by the district magistrate, which may be extended if the conditions necessitating the ban persist.

“An officer-in-charge of a police station, on the instruction of the district magistrate, may command any assembly likely to disturb the public peace to disperse. It shall then be the duty of the members of such an assembly to comply and disperse accordingly,” it reads.