Efforts to reconcile PTI differences foiled

Efforts to reconcile differences among the PTI remained unfruitful on Thursday as senior party leaders were denied a meeting with party founder Imran Khan by the Adiala Jail authorities.

Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Omar Ayub and Opposition Leader in the Senate Shibli Faraz lashed out at the jail authorities for denying them the meeting despite waiting for over three hours. They said that they would bring privilege motions against them in their respective houses.

Amid reports of differences among different PTI groups, Imran said on Wednesday that he had invited the two angry groups to a meeting in jail on Thursday. He added that he would talk to them and settle their differences.

On Thursday, National Assembly members Shehryar Afridi and Shandana Gulzar, besides Firdous Shamim Naqvi, Raoof Hassan, Junaid Akbar and Advocate Intizar Panjhota reached Adiala Jail along with Ayub and Faraz for the meeting. However, they were not allowed to enter the jail premises.

They waited from 1pm till 4:30pm outside jail but to no avail. Later, Ayub, Faraz, Gulzar, and Afridi spoke bitterly against the jail authorities for denying them the meeting. They also lashed out at Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz.

“Today, “we had a scheduled meeting” with the PTI founder, Ayub told reporters. He charged that inspector general of Punjab police was acting on the orders of those who were controlling the meetings of the PTI founder.

“The leader of opposition in the Senate and the leader of the opposition in the National Assembly have come here. The meeting was scheduled as per court order, but we have been stopped to weaken us psychologically,” Ayub said. “But let everyone know, Imran Khan’s love is in our hearts,” he added.

“We will summon the entire prison administration in the National Assembly and the Senate through the privilege motions. We are the representatives of people, how could they stop us from meeting. No one has the right to ban the PTI.”

Faraz said they were elected people and humiliating them was tantamount to humiliating the people of Pakistan. “The people are being insulted here. We have a legal right to meet our leader,” he added. Faraz dispelled any talk of differences in the party ranks.

“Nowadays, their hirelings talk about differences in the party, it’s a flop show. The whole party and all of us are united, we have no differences. We were elected because of Imran Khan,” Shibli Faraz told reporters.

Speaking on this occasion, Afridi also said that they would stand resolutely with the PTI no matter what. “We are all one team, opponents cannot compete with us,” he said. Shandana Gulzar said both the prime minister and the Punjab chief minister belonged to the same family and “both are a failure”.

Meanwhile, the PTI demanded immediate release of the party founder from his “unlawful detention” in light of the recommendations of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, endorsed by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

A PTI spokesperson said in a statement that the party founder should be fully compensated in light of the UN Working Group’s recommendations, which had declared that the motives behind his arrest were “completely and purely political to keep him out of the electoral race”.