For democracy: PTI Karachi to take month-long hiatus from sit-ins

KARACHI:

After staging sit-ins against the central government for over two months in the city, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) Karachi chapter is set to take a month-long hiatus to "respect the month of Muharram".

The PTI activists in Karachi held their first sit-in at Teen Talwar on August 17 in order to give support to the party's Azadi march that had reached Islamabad from Lahore on August 15, said Sadia Agha, a PTI leader.

The protest venue was later shifted to Sea View on the request of the deputy commissioner for district South, Mustafa Jamil Qazi, and DIG Abdul Khaliq Shaikh, who claimed the sit-in was causing hardship to the commuters, pointed out PTI lawmaker Khurram Sher Zaman. "We are holding the sit-ins with the permission of the government and we will continue to exercise this democratic right once the month of Muharram ends."

The sit-in at Sea View on Friday was, therefore, the last one until the supporters gather again after a month.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2014.