In Lahore, the administration was forced to put the Metro Bus Service to a halt after scores of PTI workers holding a demonstration near the Chief Minister House blocked the Metro Bus lane. Protesters set tyres ablaze and damaged streetlights. The police sealed several entrances to Model Town with barbed wire and containers. But the protesters marched on the roads unchallenged, chanting slogans against the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
Demonstrations were held at Shahdra Chowk, Thokar Niaz Beg, Shalimar Chowk and Cup Store Chowk in Gari Shahu. Protesters demanded the prime minister and chief minister resign immediately. “Our revolution will not stop till we receive their resignations,” said Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Mian Mahmoodur Rashid, addressing the protest at Thokar Niaz Beg.
In Faisalabad, PTI activists were joined by members of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) who staged a protest sit-in at the Kutchery Bazaar Chowk. Anjuman Talaba-i-Islam (ATI), Sunni Tehreek, Majlis Wahdatul Muslemeen, Pakistan Falah Party, Anjuman Tajiran and Sunni Ulema Board also joined later.
In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, protests erupted in various parts, during which demonstrators reiterated the party’s call for the prime minister’s resignation. In Peshawar, PTI protests took place outside the Governor House, Chief Minister House and the Peshawar Press Club. Outside the Governor House, MNA Hamidul Haq condemned the ruling party at the centre for “brutality against peaceful protesters”. Afterwards, nearly 300 PTI workers left for Islamabad to join the Azadi march.
PTI’s youth wing protested in Bannu and was joined by traders. Insaf Youth Wing district general secretary Pir Taimur Shah said his party was struggling for a ‘Naya Pakistan’ since the protest started on August 14. In Charsadda, rallies were held in two of the main bazaars where PTI’s former provincial president Akbar Matta said they will protest every day until their demands are met. Similarly, demonstrations were also seen in Barikot, Shergarh and Hazara, where PAT protesters also joined PTI workers.
Lukewarm Sindh
However, PTI chief Imran Khan’s call to rise against the government did not seem to stir up sentiments in Karachi on Sunday as hardly a few hundred protesters assembled. By the evening, around 300 people had come to participate in the protest, blocking one side of the Khayaban-e-Iqbal that leads to Do Talwar. A relatively smaller number of PTI supporters also gathered for a sit-in at the Sharae Faisal, — one of the busiest thoroughfares of the city — blocking off one of the carriageways.
Meanwhile, protests erupted in several districts of southern and central Sindh. In many districts, supporters of PTI, PAT and Majlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) forced shopkeepers to close the markets, but faced resistance by traders in some places. Protestors blocked the highways at certain locations and supporters of Sunni Tehreek (ST) also protested in few districts.
Similarly, in upper Sindh, shutter-down strikes and protest rallies were held. Muttahida Qaumi Movement workers hoisted black flags on their offices and wore black armbands to express their solidarity with the marchers.
Day after Darkness
After the horrors of Saturday night — when over 600 people, most of them Pakistan Awami Tehreek workers, were injured (below) — came to a brutal end, the sun shone on the federal capital’s sufferings. Heaps of empty rubber bullets and spent tear-gas shells used against protesters piled on to the streets (right). But the bloody night did not deter scores of others who again clashed with the police in front of the Prime Minister’s House and Pakistan Secretariat. However, for others, the day was well spent resting on the lawn at the Parliament House (left).
Published in The Express Tribune, September 1st, 2014.
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