‘Azadi March’: PTI workers asked to converge at Lahore’s Batti Chowk

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Hammad Azhar on Tuesday asked party workers and the masses to converge at Batti Chowk in Lahore to become a part of the much-hyped “Haqeeqi Azadi March”.

"Tomorrow, everyone should join this march to exercise their constitutional and democratic right of staging a peaceful protest," Azhar said in a video posted on his official Twitter handle.

He added that the workers and the leadership of the party will gather at the said point and will then march towards Islamabad "at all costs".

Calling the incumbent rulers "cowards", he said that the tactics such as the police action were being used to scare off families.

Concluding, the PTI leader said that the march was aimed at replacing the current rulers with an elected government to restore the country's sovereignty.

Meanwhile, president of PTI’s Punjab chapter Shafqat Mahmood has claimed police and other law enforcement agencies raided more than 1,100 places in Punjab late on Monday on the directions of the incumbent government.

Also read: Govt to stop PTI's long march: Rana Sanaullah

In a video message released from an undisclosed location, the former federal minister strongly condemned illegal actions of the "imported" government and use of police force against the party's workers and leaders.

“The government cannot succeed in stopping the PTI’s Haqeeqi Azadi March,” he maintained.

Shafqat announced that the rally will reach Islamabad through the Grand Trunk (GT) road, claiming that the government had already blocked M-2 Lahore-Islamabad Motorway by erecting hurdles and parking containers.

PTI Information Secretary Musarrat Jamshed Cheema said that the government won't be able to stop the march.

He added that the government had no power to stop 220 million of population. "Protest is a democratic right of every citizen and the PTI will use its democratic right."

The party's leader Andleeb Abbass highlighted that the government had not only closed down entry and exit points of the city, but also the main roads and arteries leading to the provincial capital.

Also read: Islamabad braces for PTI's long march as crackdown intensifies

“We wanted to protest against the arrests of PTI workers at Lalik Jan Chowk but heavy police contingents have been deployed there. We won't be scared off by the highhandedness of the government,” she said.

Other leaders of the party hold the stance that the actions and arrests had helped to raise the enthusiasm of workers and public at large who believe that a foreign conspiracy was hatched in the country for the change of regime.

The police raids and arrests, they say, have unleashed the true face of the "false and fascist government illegally imposed in the country."

Besides condemnations and approaching the court of law for the release of party workers, the PTI has issued a list of district lawyers’ teams along with their contact details and asked party workers to approach them in case of any difficulty.

The party has also floated a web form link to collect details of arrested workers and to provide them with legal assistance as the march enters its final phase.

(With input by News Desk)