LAHORE, March 8, 2023: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) called off its pro-judiciary rally hours after chaotic scenes in Lahore on Wednesday.
Several PTI workers and other citizens were reported injured when police baton-charged them and used water cannons to disperse them.
PTI leader Hammad Azhar, while speaking to media, urged the workers and activists to remain peaceful and go home. “They (government) want bloodshed in the country but you should avoid it and go home,” he said in a message to the people who turned up on the party call for the rally.
He said the government resorted to violence on a peaceful rally despite the fact that the security plan was finalised a day earlier. A peaceful rally, he insisted, was PTI’s right. Police, he said, damaged the vehicles of the citizens and they wanted to repeat the years-old Model Town tragedy.
Mr Azhar said 100 workers had been arrested and it’s height of fascism. Imran Khan wanted the Supreme Court to take notice of violation of human rights, he said.
He said the PML-N leaders wanted chaos in the country. He said Imran Khan’s struggle was within bounds of law and constitution. He berated the PDM government for action on Wednesday.
He said the PTI lawyers would file a contempt plea against the caretaker government. The set-up was meant to hold elections, he said. He said this was fascism in the garb of democracy.
It’s lamentable, he said, that women and children had been attacked.
