By Staff Reporter
LAHORE: Leaders of Pakistan’s Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party said on Sunday a major rally scheduled for Tuesday at Minar-i-Pakistan in Lahore will mark a turning point in their campaign to free their jailed founding chairman, Imran Khan.
The event, they said, will also amplify their demands for judicial independence and the restoration of the rule of law in a country they argue has been overtaken by political repression.
Addressing a joint press conference at their new district office in Shahmansoor Town, PTI leaders Asad Qaiser and Shahram Khan Tarakai, joined by other party figures, laid out an ambitious agenda for the August 5 gathering. They cast the rally as both a protest against Khan’s incarceration and a broader movement against what they call a “hybrid government” that has eroded democratic norms.
“With the August 5 rally, we are launching a movement for the release of our leader, securing the independence of the judiciary, and the rule of law in the country,” Qaiser said. He predicted the event would “prove a milestone in securing the release of the party founder,” signaling the PTI’s intent to escalate its campaign.
Tarakai promised a sustained push through multiple protests. “The central and provincial leaders and the allied partners have decided that this time, there will be various protests,” he said. “This is a movement, and we will continue it till achieving our goals.”
Khan, a former prime minister who led Pakistan from 2018 to 2022, was arrested in August 2023 on corruption charges that his supporters say are fabricated to sideline him politically. His detention followed a no-confidence vote that ousted him from power, an outcome the PTI claims was orchestrated by a coalition backed by the military and bolstered by a rigged election earlier this year.
The Lahore rally coincides with the second anniversary of Khan’s imprisonment, which Tarakai called a “black day” for the nation. He argued that the Constitution entitles Khan to bail since his case remains unresolved after a year, denouncing his continued detention as “unjustifiable.” “We want an open trial of Imran Khan and other PTI leaders and workers in the presence of the media in the Supreme Court,” Tarakai demanded. “When the judge is yours, the witness is yours, and the testimony is yours, then we don’t accept it.”
The leaders lambasted the 26th Amendment, passed earlier this year, which overhauled the judicial appointment process, a change they say has compromised the judiciary’s autonomy.
Tarakai also called for a judicial commission to probe the May 9, 2023, protests, a wave of violence triggered by Khan’s initial arrest that the PTI attributes to government provocateurs. “Those responsible should be punished according to the law,” he said, rejecting what he described as selective justice.
The rally’s platform includes opposition to military operations in Pakistan’s merged districts, areas once part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas now integrated into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “We will not allow military operations in the merged districts in any way,” Tarakai said. “We want education and business instead of guns, and we also want good trade relations with Afghanistan.”
He accused the federal government of destabilizing the area, a critique that ties into the PTI’s narrative of systemic mismanagement.
Though the party acknowledges internal rifts over tactics, both Qaiser and Tarakai dismissed their impact. “Despite all the difficulties, obstacles, internal differences, and the punishment of our leaders, PTI leaders and workers will reach Minar-i-Pakistan on Tuesday,” Qaiser said.
He warned the government against interfering, noting that arrest warrants issued against PTI leaders would not deter them. “We have completed our homework for the Lahore rally, and the government should not create any obstacles in the way of peaceful protests,” he added.
Ust days ahead of the rally, Sardar Abdul Qayyum Niazi, the former prime minister of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and PTI’s regional president, was arrested on Sunday in Mirpur. Niazi was apprehended near the shrine of Baba Shadi Shaheed in Bhimber district while returning from a rally in Samahni, where he had rallied supporters for the Lahore event.
Police invoked Section 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) ordinance to detain him, prompting swift backlash from PTI workers who blocked roads and burned tires across AJK. Niazi had evaded capture the previous night, slipping out of Mirpur via a back exit and switching vehicles before leading the Samahni rally.
There, he tied the Lahore protest to both Khan’s plight and the sixth anniversary of India’s revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. His press secretary, Habib Ahmed, said a large police force, led by SSP Mirpur Khurram Iqbal, intercepted Niazi’s convoy. Despite protective bail from the Islamabad High Court, valid until August 17, Niazi was taken to a rest house in Mirpur’s Industrial Area, now a makeshift sub-jail.
DIG Mirpur Dr. Liaqat Ali said the arrest, ordered by the Mirpur deputy commissioner, accounted for Niazi’s health, denying claims that two accompanying activists were also held. Niazi’s nephew, Advocate Sardar Moteeb said fresh warrants from Islamabad police had overridden the bail, a maneuver PTI leaders decried as lawless.
Regional information secretary Chaudhry Maqbool Gujjar, speaking from the United States, accused AJK Prime Minister Chaudhry Anwarul Haq of treachery. “Anwarul Haq owes his return to the AJK Assembly after a decade to PTI’s platform and Imran Khan’s personal campaigning,” Gujjar said. “It’s shameful that the same man is now ordering crackdowns on party workers who are peacefully demanding Khan Sahib’s release.”
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
