Fawad’s arrest draws swift PTI rebuke

LAHORE:

The PTI leaders on Wednesday expressed reservations and anguish over the arrest of party’s senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry and demanded his immediate release.

“Arguments should be countered by arguments, and not by arrests. The coalition government should appear before the court to prove him (Fawad) wrong,” PTI General Secretary Asad Umar said while talking to the media here on Wednesday.

Umar maintained that the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM)-led government was “scared” of Chaudhry speaking the “truth”. “If the federal government wants to know how to counter terrorism in the country, it should get inspiration from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government. People are facing worst inflation and businesses are closing daily.”

PTI senior leader Farrukh Habib expressed his frustration, saying those who had not produced Chaudhry before the court should be brought to justice. He appealed to the judiciary to take action and sought action against the Punjab IGP.

Castigating the government, Habib questioned for how long “fabricated cases” will be registered against the opponents and added, “We are waging a peaceful struggle and have adopted a democratic way by opting to dissolve the assemblies”.

PTI Central Punjab President Dr Yasmin Rashid in a separate media talk outside PTI Chairman Imran Khan’s residence noted that the arrest of Chaudhry in the wee hours had proved that the “imported government” was a “coward’.

She said the PTI was censuring the Election Commission of Pakistan (over the appointment of caretaker Punjab chief minister), adding that the polls supervisory body had become subservient to PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and thus “compromised its impartiality”.

“Despite the biased attitude of ECP, PTI won the by-elections in July 2022 with the support of the people,” she added.

Referring to Chaudhry’s arrest, Dr Yasmin said that PTI was not afraid of the “foul tactics” employed by the government. “PTI is standing firm even after taking bullets.”

“We do not fear being arrested, but I request the establishment to honour General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa’s words of remaining neutral, she maintained.

“People are not stupid. They know what the institutions are doing. Our opponents fear elections as they know that people are on our side,” she added.

The PTI leader held the incumbent regime responsible for the current economic crisis in the country, saying the price of petrol and electricity had gone out of the reach of the common man.

On the recent nationwide power outage, she said, “The country plunged into darkness after power failure and the federal (energy) minister was clueless about the power breakdown”.

“If the current situation persists, we will not have any electricity. The incumbent rulers are only focused on NROs (amnesty),” she added.

Punjab’s former health minister vowed to contest elections with “full force”, saying Imran’s message of holding immediate polls had reached far and wide and that no one can “distract PTI” from its agenda.

“ECP’s partial behavior is not new to us. The appointment of Mohsin Naqvi as interim Punjab chief minister reflects ECP’s biasness. Naqvi's role in the regime change operation was very clear and it reflects his enmity with the PTI.”

She urged the Punjab governor to give a date for the elections at the earliest.

Separately, PTI leader Mussarat Jamshaid Cheema chastised the government for arresting Chaudhry.

“Fawad is a brave son of Punjab and is not afraid of the government’s foul tactics,” she said.

“Why were they (government) threatening us with jails? What kind of money laundering have we done,” she questioned.