Farrukh Habib whisked away from Gwadar

PTI condemns forced disappearance of ex-state minister

LAHORE/ GWADAR:

Authorities on Thursday arrested Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Farrukh Habib from Gwadar along with his four brothers and as many other people.

Habib's brother approached the Lahore High Court following his arrest for his recovery.

As soon as Habib’s news started spreading, the PTI strongly condemned the “forced disappearance” of the party’s West Punjab president and former state minister.

A party spokesperson said the intensification of state repression against the PTI before upcoming elections was a shameful attempt to exclude the country’s largest political party from the grandest stage of them all and to create political pretense in the name of polls.

Read: Four PTI female workers rearrested after release

He underscored that the same plan was behind the enforced disappearance of the PTI leaders and workers, which was echoed in the caretaker prime minister's statements.

“Every tactic of cruelty, coercion, and brutality is being tried to exclude former prime minister and PTI Chairman Imran Khan and his party from the election race,” the spokesperson said. After getting relief from the courts in false, fake, and fabricated revenge cases, he pointed out, the state machinery had descended on a shameful series of forced disappearances to render the court ineffective.

After Zahoor Mashwani, Sadaqat Abbasi, Usman Dar, Owais Younis, Abdul Karim Khan, Hasan Niazi, Haider Majeed and Sheikh Rashid Ahmed; Farrukh Habib and others abducted along with them had been accused of state lawlessness.

The PTI appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan to curb the shameful practice of the state kidnappers to promote lawlessness in the country.

“The chief justice should exercise his constitutional powers without delay to protect the Constitution from the torture of extra-constitutional forces and the conspiracies of undemocratic elements,” he maintained.

Farrukh Habib has been abducted a while ago. His only crime is that he refused to give up his support for Chairman Imran Khan. He stood strong against all this fascism. This mockery of justice must stop now. Supreme Court, the higher courts must intervene and immediately stop… https://t.co/lu5XlKCFxt

— PTI (@PTIofficial) September 27, 2023

Earlier, PTI Secretary General Omar Ayub Khan wrote on microblogging platform, X: “Farrukh Habib, former minister of state and President PTI West Punjab has been abducted by unidentified people a short while ago. The rising trend of abductions of PTI leaders is condemned in the strongest words possible. Leaders are abducted and then made to record statements of leaving PTI and Imran Khan.”

He questioned: “There is no democracy or 'Rule of Law' in Pakistan. Is this how the ECP will ensure a level-playing field on the eve of issuing delimitations of constituencies? Will the election be a farce? Will a list of people deemed 'appropriate' be simply issued by the ECP as having been 'elected'?”

He said: “The CJP Qazi Faez Isa Sahib should take immediate notice of these abductions and put a stop to the complete disregard and violation of the Constitution.”