A hard day for policemen as Khan strolls around town

3,000 policemen were deployed for the day

KARACHI: It was not just another Thursday for the Karachi police — particularly the district Central police force, which were put on alert and told to make sure that no untoward incident take place before or during Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's chief Imran Khan's visit to the NA-246 constituency.

While there were rumours and threats of attacks on the PTI convoy and party chief, luckily, nothing happened.

Nearly 3,000 policemen and commandos were deployed for the day to provide security to the PTI chief, his wife and their rally. The policemen reached their patrolling spots early and knew that it would be a tough day.

"It was a really challenging day for us," said Azizabad SHO Humayyun Khan. "Thank God nothing happened. There is going to be another challenge coming up for us on April 23. We hope it will also pass without any incidents."

Several men complained that they had performed their duties without having any lunch. "We just had water all day," said one of the policemen. "We sat down for a meal in the evening after we were done with the work."

Besides the police force, several shopkeepers also suffered during the PTI chief's visit. Shops located en route to the rally in Gharibabad, Hussainabad and Karimabad were shut down by the police till after the rally.

"The police came and asked up to put the shutters down as a precautionary measure," said Arshad, a shopkeeper at Bazaar-e-Faisal. "They [the police] told us that the shops could be damaged if something happened during the rally."

Shopkeepers criticised the PTI by claiming that the party had come to Karachi to free them but was doing the opposite by indirectly forcing them to shut down their businesses for the day. Nisar, a shopkeeper, said that there were more shopkeepers in this area than men who support the PTI. He added that they had appealed to the PTI to move their election camp from Karimabad since it was affecting their work.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2015.