PTI decries ‘harassment, arrest’ of workers
PHOTO: FILE
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leaders from Sindh condemned on Tuesday what they claimed was a continued police crackdown on the party’s members in the provincial capital despite the PTI’s Azadi March coming to a temporary halt.
PTI Sindh President Ali Haider Zaidi denounced the Sindh police’s actions in a Twitter post. He claimed that the Sindh police had “raided the homes of PTI Sindh workers and local body election candidates and threatened them to withdraw in favour of the PPP”.
Zaidi warned that the state must protect its citizens lest they “take the law into their own hands”.
PTI leader Haleem Adil Sheikh also stated that “police terror had resumed in Karachi”, adding that the security personnel were carrying out raids on party workers’ homes and also arresting them. He warned the police personnel to be prepared to account for their “slavery” to the provincial government.
PTI Sindh vice president and provincial assembly member Raja Azhar said in a statement that the police had arrested former PTI deputy Nazim Sartaj Khattak and Anwar Gujjar from Lines area.
He further said that the police raided the homes of PTI workers Ghulam Mustafa, Faisal Qureshi and Ahmar Khan from Shah Faisal Colony and then arrested them.
According to the MPA, the police were pressuring party workers to admit to their involvement in the PTI march from May 25.
PTI Karachi President Bilal Ahmed Ghaffar also condemned the arrests and said that the party’s workers in Karachi were being harassed once again.
He called on the Sindh police to stop raiding the homes of the party workers and harassing them. Ghaffar added that “arrests don’t stop [political] movements”.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 1st, 2022.