PTI holds protests across Sindh demanding release of detained party leaders

KARACHI/HYDERABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday held protest demonstrations in various parts of Sindh demanding the release of its leaders, including PTI founder Imran Khan, and measures against inflation.

The protests, which were held under the banner of the Pakistan Constitution Protection Movement, also called for ensuring the freedom of the judiciary. The PTI held the protests in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas, Shaheed Benazirabad and Larkana divisions.

The party claimed that its protests were peaceful but in spite of that police arrested over 50 of its and its ally Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen’s workers. Sindh PTI President Haleem Adil Sheikh addressed a protest in Hyderabad. The party said that in order to disperse the protesting PTI workers, the Hyderabad police reached the Insaf House in Latifabad, press club and Hyder Chowk.

As PTI workers gathered at Hyder Chowk and started shouting slogans for the release of Khan, police detained many of them but the police action failed to dissuade the party workers from protesting, said the PTI.

Later, Sheikh also reached Hyder Chowk from where he led a march to the Hyderabad Press Club. Talking to the media outside the press club, Sheikh lambasted the Sindh government for what he said its unconstitutional tactics. “Why is the police brutalising people when PTI are protesting peacefully?” he asked.

He predicted that soon, there would be Khan's government in the country. He lamented that many workers of the PTI had been detained from the province, including Karachi and Hyderabad, to stop the protest. If those workers were not released, the party would approach courts, he said.

Shaikh said Sindh was under a martial law-like regime, not democracy, under Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. He said the peaceful protests of the PTI, which were its constitutional right, would continue until Khan and other PTI leaders were released.

He was of the view that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples Party wanted to create rifts between the PTI and national institutions. He urged Chief of Army Staff Gen Asim Munir to monitor the conspiratorial groups and prevent divisions within the nation.

Hailing a recent verdict of the Lahore High Court, the Sindh PTI chief said the false narrative of May 9 had been dispelled with the ruling. He mentioned that all false cases against the PTI leaders and workers were being dismissed by the courts. The governments formed by Form 47 had limited time left as the administrations established on the basis of stolen mandates could not last long, he maintained.

JI decries arrests

Karachi Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Emir Munem Zafar has demanded the government release all arrested workers of the JI stating that protests against unjust taxation and anti-people policies was the right of citizens.

The JI leader made the demand on Friday in response to the crackdown by the government against party workers. He warned the government against sabotaging the Islamabad sit-in against unjust policies to bless the independent power producers at the cost of the country's economy.

He said caravans of JI supporters had been reaching the capital to record their protest. He added that the government could not suppress the rights movement.

Zafar said the JI's rights movement and sit-in protest would continue till all its demands were met. He asked the authorities to act wisely and warned that the ruling regime would be held accountable for the unconstitutional crackdown on peaceful protesters.