<\/p>\n
LAHORE: PTI workers and police faced off in multiple cities on Saturday during protests against alleged rigging in the Feb 8 general elections.<\/p>\n In Lahore, PTI supporters had gathered outside the Lahore Press Club and the party\u2019s Jail Road office to register their protest.<\/p>\n The protesters chanted slogans, demanding the restoration of their \u201cstolen mandate\u201d. They called for rectified results based on the vote count as per Form 45, prepared at polling stations under the watch of political parties\u2019 polling agents.<\/p>\n PTI-backed candidate for NA-128, Salman Akram Raja, was arrested and taken to Racecourse Police Station. He was released later in the day.<\/p>\n Elderly men, women among those taken into custody; demonstrators in several cities want \u2018stolen\u2019 mandate restored<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Video clips posted on social media showed policemen dragging the lawyer as he participated in the protest outside PTI\u2019s office on Jail Road.<\/p>\n Ali Ijaz Buttar, another PTI candidate, was also arrested, along with elderly men, women and a child.<\/p>\n In many cities of Punjab, police arrived at the protest site even before the demonstrators had gathered and arrested several party leaders, candidates, workers and supporters. They dragged elderly men and women. PTI workers and supporters, who had gathered on the call of party founder Imran Khan, chanted slogans and demanded the restoration of their \u201cstolen\u201d mandate.<\/p>\n PTI Central Punjab general secretary Hammad Azhar, who didn\u2019t participate in any protest, posted videos on his official X account of demonstrations in Malakwal, Jhelum, Faisalabad, Toba Tek Singh, and other cities.<\/p>\n He instructed the party\u2019s ticket-holders to organise protests in their respective areas and march towards Lahore Press Club and PTI\u2019s Jail Road office.<\/p>\n \u201cIf police stop protesters, stay peaceful and stage a sit-in there,\u201d he wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n Protests in Karachi, Peshawar<\/strong><\/p>\n In Karachi, hundreds of PTI workers and supporters gathered outside the Election Commission of Pakistan\u2019s Sindh office in the city\u2019s Saddar area.<\/p>\n The protesters chanted slogans against the alleged rigging and demanded the judiciary and state institutions to intervene and fix the \u201cflaws\u201d in the results.<\/p>\n The charged crowd, including women and children, carried party flags and danced to the tunes of party songs.<\/p>\n They claimed that the mandate of Karachi was \u201cstolen\u201d on Feb 8 and that it could lead to \u201cdisastrous repercussions\u201d, like damaging the democracy and affecting the parliamentary system.<\/p>\n The party\u2019s Sindh chapter president, Haleem Adil Sheikh, and other senior leaders addressed the demonstration and vowed to keep raising their voices against the \u201crigged\u201d elections\u201c.<\/p>\n Any move to harass PTI leaders and supporters will not stop them from exercising their democratic right to protest, the speakers vowed.<\/p>\n In Peshawar and other areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, PTI workers, including the newly elected lawmakers, staged rallies.<\/p>\n The rally in the provincial capital was addressed by PTI provincial president and chief minister-designate Ali Amin Gandapur and other leaders.<\/p>\n In his speech, Mr Gandapur said his party would not seek revenge but would reform institutions responsible for the \u201cpolitical witch-hunt\u201d of his party workers and leaders.<\/p>\n \u201cReforms are necessary for the bright future of our children,\u201d Mr Gandapur said, without specifying which institutions he aims to reform.<\/p>\n Amid cheers from the protesters, the PTI leader said those who resisted reforms would be punished as per law.<\/p>\n Holding a portrait of the PTI\u2019s founder and former prime minister Imran Khan, he said that the party\u2019s next government in KP would ensure rights for women and vowed to revive the Sehat Card health insurance programme.<\/p>\n Imran Ayub in Karachi also contributed to this report<\/em><\/p>\n Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LADY police officers attempt to pull a woman out of her car during PTI\u2019s protest against alleged election rigging outside its secretariat on Jail Road, on Saturday.\u2014Murtaza Ali \/ White Star LAHORE: PTI workers and police faced off in multiple cities on Saturday during protests against alleged rigging in the Feb 8 general elections. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2024\/02\/65d17063793cf.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n