For ‘new’ Pakistan: Pakhtun, Baloch students prepare for march

No ISF camp set up at PU to avoid confrontation.

LAHORE: Several Pakhtun and Baloch students at the Punjab University (PU) are preparing to participate in the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) Azadi March on August 14.

Most of them are enrolled on special seats and receive scholarships.

“We have not established any PTI or Insaf Students’ Federation (ISF) camp at the university to avoid a clash with the administration or Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT). But we are mustering support for the rally,” said an Institute of Communication Studies student from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“We plan to arrange 200 motorcycles to join PTI chief Imran Khan’s convoy for Islamabad for the creation of a new Pakistan.”

“Many Baloch and Pakhtun students have had them registered at PTI camps to attend the march on Independence Day,” said another student.

“We want to be part of the historic day. We have been preparing silently to avoid any backlash by the government or IJT.”

ISF’s Lahore chapter information secretary Talha Qureshi said PU students were individually registering at ISF camps.

He said IJT activists had been roughed up Imran Khan in the past and the ISF had not established a registration camp at the PU to avoid further confrontation.

ISF’s Punjab chapter information secretary Hammad Awan, himself a PU student, said students from several divisions, including Faisalabad, Sargodha and Sahiwal, would join Azadi March.

“The ISF has been tasked by Imran Khan with gathering 100,000 students in Lahore. More will join the rally on its way to Islamabad,” Awan told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 12^th,2014.