KARACHI: With Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan declaring that he would go ahead with his ‘Plan C’ and enforce a shutdown of Karachi on Friday, the country’s economic nerve centre was on tenterhooks with people apprehensive about a repeat of the mayhem in Faisalabad early this week.

The Sindh government, provincial administration and police came up with assurances that plans had been made to maintain peace and ensure a trouble-free day of protests. The local PTI leadership also said their activists would not force traders to close shops and transporters to keep their vehicles off road.

There was no indication that activists of the PPP would challenge PTI protesters, as PML-N workers and supporter did in Faisalabad which resulted in fierce clashes and a shooting death.

Another positive factor was an announcement by the MQM that it would keep itself away from the PTI’s activities. Its leaders said they respected the right of PTI and every other political party to hold peaceful rallies and demonstrations. The party expressed the hope that PTI workers would abide by the declared stance of their leaders that they would not force businessmen and transporters to stop work for the day.

Meanwhile, reports from various parts of the city on Thursday night said that PTI workers and activists had started gathering at specified points and had almost launched their planned sit-ins. There were, however, no reports of any untoward incident from any place till late in the night.

Published in Dawn, December 12th, 2014