Female PTI activist fights off mob

Says PML-N workers chased her with sticks

ISLAMABAD: Even amidst chaotic scenes in Faisalabad, scenes of a lone woman fighting off an angry and advancing mob were the most dramatic.

Surrounded by government supporters in Faisalabad on Monday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Lubna Malik truly did fight like a cornered tigress.

Workers of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) surrounded and began advancing on Malik, the lone woman, at Ghanta Ghar chowk, after she raised PTI’s ‘Go Nawaz, Go’ slogan during an interview with a television channel.



But Malik was not intimidated. She recalled the ordeal while speaking to The Express Tribune.

“I was in the middle of an interview with some TV channels when I raised the Go Nawaz, Go slogan in response to PML-N workers’ ‘Ro Imran, Ro’ slogan and they started gathering around me.

“They (PML-N workers) started using abusive language, picked up their sticks and started marching towards me,” she added.

Malik who reached the venue for the address at 11:15 am says she managed to get her hands on a stick too. “I managed to get one stick with which I tried to stop them, at first, and then started beating them up to push them back.”

Responding to a question, she said, “The police was deployed there but they did not come forward to rescue me,” adding, “The police did not cooperate because it was taking PML-N’s side.”

The PTI leader who was seen swinging at the PML-N supporters with her stick as they gathered around her, claimed, “PML-N workers were following me wherever I was going, I had almost taken a complete round of Ghanta Ghar Chowk in a bid to reach my car, but they followed me.”

The scene lasted for around four to six minutes but Malik boldly faced the rowdy PML-N workers, unflinching and determined.

The PML-N workers continued to gather around her till PTI supporters and passers-by intervened and asked to let her go.

Shifting her focus to the deadly clash which erupted between her party and PML-N workers, which claimed the life of one PTI activist, Malik said, “The government has taken the collision course.”

Ironically enough, not only does the gritty Malik hail from a political family historically associated with the PML-N and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid in Sargodha, she is also the first female politician from her family.

Having studied Arts at the National College of Arts, with a degree in ceramics, she has been a part of PTI for the past nine years.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2014.