Incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party held nationwide protests on Friday against alleged rigging and vote fraud in by-polls held on April 21 amid reports of a police crackdown on the party’s activists in parts of Punjab, Pakistani media reported.
Further, the party has demanded the release of Imran Khan. According to PTI, Punjab Police have apprehended numerous activists and carried out raids at their houses and offices to thwart their protest, as per Pakistani media. Despite this, PTI supporters convened protest gatherings in various districts of Lahore, including Shahdara and Garden Town.
While speaking to journalists in Islamabad, PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan claimed that their sound system and chairs were confiscated ahead of the party’s 28th Foundation Day. “Rigging was committed everywhere [every polling station] to defeat the PTI,” he added.
According to Pakistani media, in Faisalabad, law enforcement authorities halted a PTI protest rally on Samandari Road and detained MNA Changez Khan Kakar, MPA Sheikh Shahid Javed, and several others. In a post on X, PTI leader Hammad Azhar claims that the Lahore police have taken at least 12 of his workers, including a 12-year-old boy, into custody from his constituency.
The former ruling party believed that the incumbent rulers stole their electoral mandate in the elections and the results were changed in Form 47s to benefit the PML-N and the PPP. “The incumbent government at the Centre has been formed after stealing PTI’s 180 seats,” Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur had alleged.
In a bid to reclaim their “stolen mandate” the Khan-founded party, apparently, mounted pressure on the PML-N-regime as the six-party opposition alliance launched its protest drive against the government with a rally in Baluchistan’s Pishin, where PTI leader Omar Ayub vowed to reclaim their rights through the “Tehreek Tahafuz Ayin”.
Simultaneously, the opposition party staged extensive protests and sit-ins throughout Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the PTI holds governmental authority. In Dera Ismail Khan, a large number of PTI workers held a protest demonstration outside the press club. The PTI mobilized large-scale rallies in Peshawar, Mardan, Swabi, and various other cities within the province.
In Karachi, the PTI took part in a protest rally on Rashid Minhas Road. PTI Sindh chapter President Haleem Adil Sheikh was leading the rally. Addressing the rally at Char Minar Chowrangi, Sheikh said: “The nation voted us to free PTI founder. Our protest is for the release of Kaptan and against the mandate theft,” he added.
Speaking at a press conference in the port city, PTI leader Omar Ayub Khan lashed out at the Punjab Inspector General for its “cruelties” against his party workers. He said that former Punjab CM Mohsin Raza Naqvi had victimised the PTI in the past but now Punjab IG is doing the same.
Ayub said that they were staging protests for the release of the PTI founder and other incarcerated leaders and women activists of the former ruling party. In addition to this, the PTI recorded their protest in Quetta, where a large number of PTI workers and leaders took out a rally.
