Level playing field: PTI accuses police of harassing its workers

RPO says they had asked members of all political parties to sign affidavit saying they would not disturb the peace

BAHAWALPUR: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s Bahawalpur chapter leaders held a press conference on Monday alleging that police officials had been harassing their candidates on the behest of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz. “The police have taken several of our candidates’ family members into custody and have beaten them up…they are openly oppressing our party workers.”

PTI district organiser Mian Farzand Ali Goheer was addressing the press conference. He was joined by PTI’s Azra Mehmood Sheikh and Rabia Malik among other party officials.

Goheer said the Bahawalpur DCO and DPO were prepared to break laws to please Shahbaz Sharif. “Holding a transparent election in such circumstances is not possible…PTI candidates are willing to boycott the elections and court arrest if police brutality does not end.”

He said if the PTI was considered a threat to peace, then Mian Baligur Rehman and Malik Muhammad Iqbal Channar, should be placed under house arrest for openly flouting ECP rules.

He demanded that the Bahawalpur DCO and the DPO be transferred before the election. “The ECP should register cases against PML-N’s ministers and lawmakers who are violating the rules.”

Malik Majeed Channar, PTI’s candidate for chairman in UC-3, said the ECP must declare UC-1 and UC-3 sensitive and Rangers must be deployed there on polling day.

Responding to allegations, RPO Ehsan Sadiq said the police in Bahawalpur had never been partisan and would never be. “The DCO’s office had issued a list carrying names of 119 people of various political parties…the police were asked to bring them to the police station and get them to sign an affidavit saying they would not cause any disturbance in the election.”  He said the police had followed the DCO’s orders, however, the PTI leaders in Bahawalpur had concocted a story around that and were claiming that they were being harassed. “Their claims are false…the list had names of candidates and workers from all political parties.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2015.