Setback: PTI, PAT break off talks with govt after workers’ arrests

Imran asks govt to explain which law has been used to detain his supporters.

ISLAMABAD:

Condemning a crackdown on his supporters, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on Friday said he will ask his party’s negotiators to call off talks with the government.

“I will ask our vice-chairman and negotiating committee to not hold talks with the government,” he told his supporters staging a sit-in at Islamabad’s D-Chowk.

Imran’s statement came on the heels of a similar announcement by Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri. In an address on Friday afternoon, Qadri said his party would call off talks with government negotiators due to the arrest of a number of PAT workers. The PAT chief claimed those arrested included his personal guards and a member of his party’s negotiating team.

During his address, Imran asked the government to explain which law had been used to justify the arrests of PTI supporters in Islamabad – who included DJ Butt, the person responsible for arranging music at the PTI rally.

The PTI chief also claimed the police had arrested PTI supporters coming in from Peshawar to attend today’s (Saturday’s) sit-in proceedings. PTI is looking to observe a ‘one nation day’ today to mark 30 days since the party’s Azadi March protest began.

“I want to ask the judiciary under which law the PTI supporters have been detained,” Imran said.

Claiming that one of his supporters detained by police in Faisalabad died under custody due to a ruptured appendix, the PTI lashed out at the government for using force against ‘peaceful protesters’.

“Such atrocities were not even committed under dictators like Musharraf,” he said, adding, “Musharraf’s dictatorship was better than Nawaz Sharif’s democracy.”



Taking a jab at Prime Minister Nawaz, Imran said, “I don’t need the army’s support because I’m not a byproduct of army rule.” Pointing to his supporters, he said “they are my army.”

The PTI chairman recalled that he, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and the late Jamaat-e-Islami amir Qazi Hussain Ahmed were the first to raise their voices when former president Pervez Musharraf removed then chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

“PTI was at the forefront of that movement [to restore deposed judges]… not because we wanted to remove Musharraf from power, but because we believed only an independent judiciary could save people from terrorism,” he told supporters. Subsequently in 2013, he said elections were held under an independent judiciary for the first time in Pakistan.

Imran added that even though he was warned by Dr Qadri that free and fair elections were not possible under the then set-up, he took part in the polls because he trusted Iftikhar Chaudhry.

“I told Qadri that I didn’t trust Nawaz, Zardari or the election commission constituted by them, but I had faith in [Iftikhar] Chaudhry who had stood up to a dictator.”

He lamented that his faith in the ex-CJP would prove wrong and that Iftikhar Chaudhry, by conniving with Nawaz, would go on to become a ‘Mir Jaffar’ for democracy in Pakistan. “Whenever an independent, neutral investigation will be held, I will reveal how Chaudhry sabotaged the 2013 polls in connivance with Nawaz.”

Defending his party’s Azadi March, Imran said he and his supporters had no choice left other than taking to the streets after being frustrated by all quarters. Imran also said Jang/Geo group owner Mir Shakilur Rehman is being given protocol ‘reserved for a visiting head-of-state’. “The Punjab police is protecting him [Shakil] as if he were the Chinese president,” he said.

“It is evident you two are together… he [Shakil] helped you [Nawaz] rig the elections and now you are trying to protect him.” Referring to DG ISPR’s statement that the “army has nothing to do with the government’s affairs,” Imran said Nawaz was trying to malign the army in connivance with Mir Shakil.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13^th, 2014.