Incarceration of Imran Khan: KP CM asks party workers to protest today

PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has once again announced agitation against the incarceration of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan and other leaders and activists, urging the workers to come out on roads on Friday in respective districts in the province.

In a video statement, he said he would lead the protesters in Peshawar and asked the PTI workers to stage protests in their own districts.

He said the PTI workers were concerned about what he called the “illegal detention” of their party leader, Imran Khan, and other leaders and activists of the party.

Gandapur said the party workers were worried about the health of Imran Khan after the government stopped the party leaders, lawyers and doctors from meeting him in jail.

This is the first time that the chief minister, also PTI provincial president, asked the party workers to hold protests in their districts instead of marching towards Islamabad.

Though some of the party senior leaders had opposed the protest in Islamabad due to the unprecedented security measures as well as the important Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, the chief minister had announced to lead the PTI workers and march on the federal capital and lodge a protest at D-Chowk.

He, however, remained silent and could not fulfill his commitment to staging a protest march in Islamabad.

According to the party insiders, the PTI workers had lost trust in most of the party leaders as during the last protest march on Islamabad, the leaders disappeared and deserted the workers, and many of them were beaten and arrested by the Punjab police.

This is stated to be one of the reasons that the party leaders avoided giving a call for protest or march towards Islamabad.