ISLAMABAD: Like Imran Khan, Dr Tahirul Qadri also has eased life for his Pakistan Awami Tehrik supporters camping outside the Parliament House for weeks to the annoyance of the government and democracy lovers in the country.

PAT workers from Islamabad and Rawalpindi and surrounding areas are now required to attend the party’s anti-government sit-in every day from 5pm to 9pm, and spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights there.

Only time would tell if this means the PAT protest is losing steam.

But the tactic has certainly been borrowed from the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf of Imran Khan whose ‘azadi’ camp livens up in the evenings.

Both the political mavericks have been agitating for ‘azadi’ (freedom) and ‘inqilab’ (revolution) since August 15.

“More than 1,000 PAT male and female workers hailing from Rawalpindi District feel relaxed. They wanted to return to their regular life,” a senior party leader told Dawn on Wednesday.

“But the thinning of the gathering was creating unrest in the party ranks. As left without informing the local leadership, the party took this decision (of relaxing hours of attendance) to avoid an embarrassing situation from arising,” he said.

Homesickness of the sit-in participants and shortage of funds to feed them were two problems facing the PAT leadership.

“More than Rs150 million had been spent on meals and transport up to September 13,” he said.

Teams had been formed to check the attendance of the sit-in campers.

“Each night area in-charge had to text SMS to second tier leadership how many people were present in the sit-in,” he said.

Now that the hours of attendance have been relaxed, they can come to the protest with full bellies. “That also takes care of their worries about tending homes and attending to their jobs. They did not expect the sit-in to go much beyond two weeks,” he said.

PAT Rawalpindi spokesman Suhail Abbasi confirmed that the PAT leadership allowed the workers to go home, with the condition that they will attend the sit-in in front of Parliament House from 5pm to 9pm daily and spend the nights there on the weekend.

“Teams monitored their presence only to arrange meals for them. We counted them for preparing food for the same number, not to pay them daily wages,” he said.

Spokesman Abbasi said PAT also arranged transport for its workers from Rawalpindi district and adjoining areas on daily basis to ensure their presence in the evening.

Although he did not reveal the expenditure on the two counts, he said the funds came from the donations, mostly from PAT workers.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2014