LAHORE: The Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen (MWM) and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) staged a sit-in outside the Lahore Press Club on Tuesday to show solidarity with the protest marchers in Islamabad.

The leaders and workers of both parties raised slogans against the government and demanded Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's resignation.

Also read: MWM, other parties stage sit-in

Meanwhile, JUP president Pir Ijaz Hashmi has criticised Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Khan for using women and children as 'human shield' for entering Islamabad's Red Zone.

He also chided the PTI leader for giving call for civil disobedience. He said peaceful protest was right of every democratic party, but inciting people for civil disobedience was not job of a politician.

He demanded that the institutions concerned should take notice of it.

Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat head Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi also urged Imran Khan to prefer talks over violence.

He lamented that Imran sent his own sons abroad just a couple of days before the march but was seeking sacrifices from PTI workers.

He said after failing to gather a reasonable number of people in the so-called Azadi March, the PTI chief was now taking "the road to violence".

He appealed to Imran to accept the government's talks offer and restrict his demands to electoral reforms and re-polling in the constituencies where rigging was alleged.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2014