<\/p>\n
\u2022 Workers face off with policemen in Punjab; footage shows people being dragged out of cars
\u2022 Party terms protest \u2018successful\u2019, claims several leaders, workers rounded up<\/p>\n
LAHORE \/ ISLAM\u00adABAD: PTI leaders and workers came face to face with the police once again on Saturday as the party staged protests across the country, despite inclement weather, against the alle\u00adged rigging in the February 8 general elections.<\/p>\n
Police in Punjab thras\u00adhed and arrested several workers and leaders in Lahore and other cities. PTI claimed that around 80 protesters were arres\u00adted from Lahore alone.<\/p>\n
Protests were held in 38 cities of Punjab on Saturday. In Lahore, the protesters at GPO Chowk and Liberty Chowk were greeted by a heavy contingent of police.<\/p>\n
PTI leaders and workers who gathered at GPO Chowk chanted the slogans, but as leaders tried to address the crowd, they were stopped and arrested by police.<\/p>\n
PTI leaders Mian Shahzad Farooq and Afzaal Azeem Pahat, who contested the election last month against Maryam Nawaz Sharif and Shehbaz Sharif, respectively, were also arrested.<\/p>\n
Former Supreme Court Bar Secretary Aftab Bajwa and several party workers were arrested from GPO Chowk, as well as Liberty Roundabout in Lahore.<\/p>\n
The protesters vowed to continue their struggle to get their due mandate back and said the incumbent government could not silence them by registering \u201cfake FIRs\u201d.<\/p>\n
They said it was their right to hold peaceful protests.<\/p>\n
PTI leader Zubair Khan Niazi, who has been in hiding since May 9, appeared at the demonstration at GPO Chowk.<\/p>\n
Videos of people being dragged out of cars and arrested for displaying PTI flags on their cars were also doing the rounds on social media.<\/p>\n
In one footage, police could be seen beating and dragging a man out of his jeep, bearing a PTI flag. The PTI leadership has condemned the police actions to sabotage what they called \u201cpeaceful protest\u201d against the alleged rigging in elections and stealing of mandate.<\/p>\n
PTI central Punjab general secretary Hammad Azhar, who has been in hiding since May 9 last year, said the \u201ccontroversial\u201d chief minister, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, had committed fascism by using the state\u2019s machinery against peaceful protesters.<\/p>\n
The former federal minister added that his party would provide legal assistance to all those arrested by the police and annou\u00adnced that PTI would stage another protest next week.<\/p>\n
In Gujrat, police deta\u00adined several PTI workers after they staged a protest at Kutchery Chowk.<\/p>\n
The demonstration was led by PTI\u2019s candidate for NA-64, Qaisara Elahi, the wife of former Punjab chief minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi, and her sister Sumaira Elahi.<\/p>\n
The PTI workers reached the venue in the form of rallies from across the district, while the main rally started from the Zahoor Elahi Palace.<\/p>\n
Protests in Sindh In Sindh, protests were staged outside press clubs across the province.<\/p>\n
Led by senior party leaders, a major demonstration was held outside the Karachi Press Club. PTI Sindh chapter president Haleem Adil Sheikh led the protest in rural towns and small cities of Sindh, including Dhabeji, Gharo, Gujjo, Thatta, Jamshoro and Hyderabad.<\/p>\n
In his address, Mr Sheikh said the PTI won 22 National Assembly seats and 38 of the Sindh Assembly in the province, but it was deprived of the mandate through \u201cfake Form 47\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven Sindh, which is falsely dubbed as PPP\u2019s stronghold, has rejected the politics of corruption and nepotism,\u201d Mr Sheikh claimed.<\/p>\n
Demos in Islamabad<\/strong><\/p>\n In Islamabad, a large number of PTI workers held the protest despite heavy rain. The demonstration was led by the party\u2019s election candidates from Islamabad, Amir Mughal, Shoaib Shaheen and Ali Bukhari.<\/p>\n The rally started at the F-6 Super Market, and later, the protesters gathered in front of the National Press Club.<\/p>\n While addressing the rally, Mr Mughal said 250 million people were supporting PTI and standing shoulder to shoulder with Imran Khan.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom Karachi to Khyber, people gave a clear message that their leader is Imran Khan. We will not allow the assemblies to run if our leader is not released and the mandate of people not returned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n While talking to Dawn, Mr Mughal said that the huge demonstration, despite rain, showed that no difficulties could stop people from supporting Mr Khan.<\/p>\n He said that although a heavy contingent of police was present, it did not interfere with the protest.<\/p>\n \u2018People came out in droves\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n A PTI spokesman called the protests a success and said a large number of people came out on the PTI founder\u2019s call.<\/p>\n Despite the use of state machinery to disrupt peaceful protests across the country, a large<\/p>\n number of people held demonstrations across the country against the \u201ctheft of the public mandate\u201d on Saturday.<\/p>\n He said people came out \u201cin droves\u201d on the call of Imran Khan against election \u201cfraud\u201d.<\/p>\n Waseem Ashraf Butt in Gujrat and Imran Ayub in Karachi also contributed to this report<\/em><\/p>\n Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2024<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2022 Workers face off with policemen in Punjab; footage shows people being dragged out of cars\u2022 Party terms protest \u2018successful\u2019, claims several leaders, workers rounded up LAHORE \/ ISLAM\u00adABAD: PTI leaders and workers came face to face with the police once again on Saturday as the party staged protests across the country, despite inclement weather, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66996,"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\/03\/65e39d304ad3f.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66995","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\/66995","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=66995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}