PHOTO: EXPRESS
The DC office, through its letter dated April 16, 2018, informed the PTI leadership that Greater Iqbal Park is a part of national heritage and the Cabinet Committee on Law and order has already ordered a halt to all types of political or religious gatherings to ensure safety and security of such sites.
The DC office advised the opposition party to hold its public gathering at Nasir Bagh, a place notified for holding all kinds of rallies and processions.
Meanwhile, PTI Central Punjab President Abdul Aleem Khan, MPA Shoaib Siddiqui, Jamshed Iqbal Cheema, Aajasam Shareef, Ejaz Diyaal, Hafiz Farhat Abbass, Khalid Gujar, Furrukh Javed Moon and other party leaders and workers visited Minar-e-Pakistan to chalk out the public gathering plan. They weighed different proposals about the location of the stage and seating arrangements to ensure proper security of participants and protection of the historic venue.
Speaking to the media, Khan highlighted that the PTI is going to hold a mammoth public meeting at the spot where the Pakistan Resolution was passed. The party will soon initiate public gathering arrangements after PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s visit to Lahore on April 20. The party has already planned to establish over 100 camps in different areas of the provincial capital to mobilise its workers and supporters, he indicated.
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He said the city would be decorated with PTI flags, hoardings and streamers from April 21 onwards. The party will soon assign duties to all its leaders to bring party workers and the general public to Minar-e-Pakistan on April 29. PTI workers from other provincial capitals, including Peshawar, Karachi and Quetta, will also reach Lahore through special trains to participate in the public gathering. Provincial office-bearers will also attend this public gathering with their support, he added.
Khan told media that on the eve before the public gathering, the party will hold a ‘jashan’ at Minar-e-Pakistan.
A cultural show will be organised to charge party workers and Lahorities at large. PTI leaders also took a round of the venue. They met with security in charge of the historic monument and discussed security arrangements of the gathering.
PTI senior leaders, including Abdul Aleem Khan, Leader of the Opposition Mian Mahmood-ur-Rasheed, Senator Chaudhry Mohammad Sarwar, MNA Shafqat Mahmood, MPA Shoaib Siddiqui, Ejaz Chaudhary and Central Punjab General Secretary Shaukat Bhatti, also held a special meeting to make the public gathering plan materialise.
Just recently, Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s politics is primed on sit-ins and civil disobedience which is a recipe for economic disaster. He was speaking to a party workers’ rally in Peshawar on Wednesday, Express News reported.
“In the same way that Lahore is my city—and Punjab is my province—so are Peshawar and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,” Shehbaz said.
“Where is the ‘Naya Pakistan’ Imran had promised in K-P? There is no infrastructure, health, or education upgradation that I can see,” he claimed.
“Upon entering the city, instead of the metro bus project, I only saw empty ditches,” he said. “He [Imran] lashed out at us when we rolled out the Metro project in Lahore, but has now followed suit himself,” he said.
“I know how difficult the daily commute is for the people of Peshawar,” he claimed.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 17th, 2018.
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