By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Opposition parties pressed ahead with a nationwide strike and protests on Sunday to mark the second anniversary of the 2024 general elections, which they claim were rigged, while also observing a day of mourning for a suicide bombing in Islamabad that killed at least 36 people just two days earlier.
The Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayin-i-Pakistan (TTAP) alliance, which includes the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of jailed former prime minister Imran Khan, had called for a shutter-down strike and wheel-jam action across the country to highlight alleged electoral fraud. But the response was uneven, with bustling markets in the capitals of Punjab and Islamabad largely ignoring the call, while a full shutdown gripped Quetta in Balochistan and a partial one took hold in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s main city.
In Lahore, Punjab’s provincial capital, major markets stayed shuttered – but not in solidarity with the protesters. It was a Sunday, after all, and the city was winding down from its annual Basant kite festival, which drew crowds for colourful aerial displays before authorities stepped in to curb the tradition’s risks. Traffic hummed along routine lines, and witnesses noted the usual weekend rhythm, with no sign of the “silent agitation” PTI had urged through voluntary shop closures and people staying indoors.
Further north in Islamabad, the federal capital, the picture was much the same. Traders shrugged off the strike, keeping sectors like F-6, G-9 and Blue Area humming with shoppers. The H-9 Sunday bazaar, a weekly fixture that often serves as a barometer for such calls, teemed with visitors haggling over vegetables and garments. Fawad Khan, a PTI supporter hawking clothes from a stall said he backed Khan but couldn’t afford the hit. “We’re hand-to-mouth already. I can’t starve my family for this,” he said, folding a shirt as customers milled about.
Muhammad Faiq, a resident out for groceries, said. “I sympathise with PTI, but Sunday’s my only free day to shop. Life doesn’t stop.” Not everyone was so pragmatic. Muhammad Danish, another shopper, vented frustration at the entire political class. “All parties are the same – they never cared about us. When PTI was in power, Khan talked big about simple living but helicoptered everywhere. No one, not even the establishment, gives a damn about Pakistan, or we’d not be in this mess,” he said.
The TTAP had planned a torchlight rally outside Faisal Mosque in Islamabad’s E-7 sector for the evening, but it fizzled under a barrage of roadblocks and what opposition leaders called a pre-emptive police crackdown. Amir Mughal, PTI’s Islamabad chapter president, arrived at the site anyway, flanked by Senate Opposition Leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas, former senator Mushtaq Ahmed, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, Akhunzada Hussain Ahmed Yousafzai and others. Mughal alleged more than two dozen party workers, including eight women, had been rounded up from the area earlier in the day.
Police, however, dismissed the claims, saying no PTI arrests had occurred. Abbas, addressing a small knot of reporters under the mosque’s minarets, turned his fire on the Punjab government. “They’re backing Basant festivals and dance parties even after the imambargah massacre,” he said. The bombing at the Shi’ite Muslim prayer hall on Friday had exposed glaring security lapses, he added. “Law enforcement failed the people badly – that’s why so many lives were lost.” Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, daughter of former premier Nawaz Sharif, had indeed scrubbed her Basant schedule in the attack’s wake.
Khokhar, a former PPP senator, framed the day as a launchpad. “This is the start of the movement – don’t write it off as a one-off,” he told reporters. He voiced alarm over Khan’s health in detention and predicted the campaign would snowball, tapping into national unease. Yousafzai rated the strike a hit in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and rural Sindh, but only a partial success in Punjab, urban Sindh hubs like Karachi and Hyderabad.
Earlier, TTAP and PTI accounts on X had flooded timelines with grainy videos and photos purporting to show compliance. Deserted streets in Peshawar’s Qissa Khwani Bazaar, shuttered stalls in Quetta’s Sariab Road, quiet alleys in Hyderabad’s Resham Gali. Supporters clustered in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Kohat and Balochistan’s Pishin, chanting slogans under party banners.
But in Karachi, Sindh’s megacity, the Tajir Ittehad traders’ group chairman Atiq Mir chalked up closures to the weekend holiday, not politics. “Jodia Bazaar has 100 markets down, Saddar 50, Tariq Road 40 – but Sundays are slow anyway. Street vendors still hawk their wares,” he said. PTI Sindh chief Haleem Adil Sheikh posted snaps of Jackson Electronics Market in Keamari as “proof” of solidarity. He called it a “referendum,” not a mere strike – the first, he claimed, where shutters fell without coercion, no sticks or burning tyres needed.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa offered brighter spots for the opposition. In Peshawar, inner-city bazaars like Hashtnagri and Rampura went dark, though Qissa Khwani stayed half-lit. PTI planned district-level marches, with traders and transport unions signing on. Omar Ayub Khan, a senior party figure, hailed a full wheel-jam in Haripur, thanking local associations for the “solidarity.” By noon, workers mustered at Hashtnagri Chowk, snaking through Rampura to Chowk Yadgar for speeches under panaflex banners.
Balochistan, restive and remote, delivered the starkest shutdown. Quetta’s markets, from Liaquat Bazaar to Serena Chowk, locked tight; roads emptied, save for pockets of demo. Mobile internet cut out again, as PTI and Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) activists – led by TTAP head Mehmood Khan Achakzai – took to the streets. Clashes flared along the Western Bypass at Brewery and Khaizi Chowk: tyres blazed, barricades rose, tear gas canisters hissed. Police baton-charged in Qila Saifullah, stones flew in Chaman – injuring one officer – and small sit-ins dotted Harnai, Duki, Ziarat and beyond. PTI tallied 40 arrests province-wide. Shahid Rind, a Balochistan official, sniped back at Achakzai on X over a photo of a barren Quetta Airport Road. “Sundays in winter look like this anyway.” TTAP countered with claims of total road blocks in Loralai and Harnai, more fires near Duki’s Eidgah.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
