The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Wednesday marked the third anniversary of party founder Imran Khan’s arrest with protests and rallies nationwide, including a “power show” in Peshawar that saw Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi threatening a long march on Islamabad on Sept. 27.
Addressing a rally of thousands, Afridi said the PTI had two demands of the incumbent government: an end to restrictions on meetings with Imran Khan and his wife, Bushra, and for their pending cases to be heard on merit. If these demands are not met, he warned, the party would march on Islamabad next month.
Earlier, in his own address, PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan had said the time for speeches was over and pointed to Afridi for announcing the next steps for the party in its bid to secure the release of Khan and Bushra. PTI KP President Junaid Akbar Khan had similarly spoken about the need to secure the freedom of the former prime minister.
Afridi claimed before the crowd that Imran Khan would be released “within 30 minutes” if the judiciary were independent and decided his cases on merit. He urged youth at the rally and across the country to come forward and join the planned march for their survival and the security of their future. No external entity or power is coming to help them, he added.
“Imran Khan would have come out of jail immediately if he had signed a deal with the powers that be,” he said, maintaining the patty founder would never surrender. He also took oath from the people in attendance that they would not fear bullets, tanks and rockets during the proposed march, adding he would personally lead them.
The party’s marking of the anniversary of Khan’s arrest also saw protests in pockets across the country. In Lahore, a protest near the civil secretariat drew hundreds of workers, prompting a police response that resulted in several arrests, including parliamentarians.
The PTI claimed it had also staged smaller protests in Faisalabad, Multan, Rawalpindi, Kasur, Jhang, Kamalia, Toba Tek Singh, Okara, Bahawalnagar, Rahim Yar Khan and other districts of Punjab.
In Karachi, the PTI’s protest and police blockades resulted in traffic snarls.