Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Asad Qaiser on Tuesday announced the party’s protest movement will continue into its second phase on Aug. 14, Independence Day, as the Aug. 5. “power show” ended with scattered demonstrations nationwide.
“The second phase of our protest will be on Aug. 14. Then we will go to Sindh,” Qaiser told media in Swabi, referring to protests seeking the release of PTI Patron-in-Chief Imran Khan, who marked his second anniversary of incarceration on Aug. 5.
According to Qaiser, Khan has been offered his release several times but refuses to accept any “deal.”
The PTI’s Aug. 5 protest, announced as the “peak” of a movement to secure the release of Khan and his wife, Bushra, was marred by a crackdown on party activists. In Punjab, police arrested over 240 opposition party workers, with police saying at least 122 were taken into custody for trying to block roads and threatening law and order in Lahore. Among the detained were at least seven members of the Punjab Assembly, though they were released in the evening at the behest of the speaker.
Ahead of the protest, the government also imposed Section 144 in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, banning gatherings of more than five people.
Despite the crackdowns, however, demonstrations were witnessed in several Punjab districts, including Sialkot, Okara, Kasur, Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan, Mianwali, Mandi Bahauddin, Layyah, Toba Tek Singh, Khanewal, and Narowal. There were also a few scattered protests in Karachi and Balochistan. However, journalists say the most crowd any rally was able to attract outside KP was roughly 1,000 people, insufficient to achieve the “power show” the PTI had hoped for.
In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, which saw the most protests and attracted the largest numbers of several thousand due to the PTI being in power in the province, Gandapur said people had answered the PTI founder’s call. “Now this protest will be held on a daily basis,” he said, adding the party would soon announce its plans for Aug. 13 and 14.
However, even the KP demonstrations were marred by infighting. There was a clash between PTI supporters on the motorway, as one group sought to block access to it until Khan’s release, while another said this would merely inconvenience the public and accomplish little else. Gandapur also abruptly left the rally and did not address supporters at its end-point, prompting many to criticize him and accuse him of betraying the party.