LAHORE: After keeping his friends and foes guessing for weeks, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan unveiled on Saturday his plan to paralyse Islamabad: party workers will block roads leading to government offices – particularly those continuously being mentioned in his speeches.

“Now, Nawaz Sharif will have to either resign or will be held accountable for his proven corruption,” Mr Khan said at a gathering of Insaf Professional Forum.

Mr Khan, however, hinted at the possibility of a change in the schedule of the Islamabad lock-down date. Earlier, he had announced Oct 30 as the final showdown date.

Urging the masses to be ready for a longer showdown in Islamabad, the PTI chief said the workers would continue occupying roads and entrances of major government offices such as National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Federal Investigation Agency, Federal Board of Revenue and Election Commission of Pakistan.

Saying that his struggle was against the corrupt mafia, he added the country could be strengthened if institutions were strengthened.

Mr Khan cited Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s police force and hospitals, local government system and Bank of Khyber as glaring examples of merit and strength.

“If you want to see Pakistan in its real vein, come and join the PTI in its decisive sit-in in Islamabad,” he appealed to the masses while lauding them for their political awareness and enthusiastic participation in party’s Sept 30 rally in Raiwind.

He critcised the incumbent PML-N and previous PPP governments for weakening state institutions, adding NAB had failed to act against Nawaz, Shahbaz, Ishaq Dar and Khursheed Shah.

Mr Khan said only Sharif’s factories and bank accounts were swelling day by day. He also chided Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal for his statement that the Supreme Court should stay in its limits. He asked whether the PML-N was in its limits, when it attacked the Supreme Court.

He did not spare Mariam Nawaz and Hamza Shahbaz for acting as deputy prime minister and deputy chief minister.

“This is monarchism and rightly highlighted by the Supreme Court judge,” he said.

He said the shifting of Sharif family’s sugar mills to south Punjab was corruption, adding the PML-N government had also been trapped in the Orange Line Metro Train project case. He said the PML-N government had multiplied country’s debt and compromised country’s sovereignty at the international level.

He spent a busy day in Lahore and addressed meetings of the PTI Punjab central region, Lahore district urban and rural wings as well as met trade unionists.

He said the PTI workers had been running from pillar to post to get justice against corruption for the last six months and eventually they were compelled to exercise their right to peaceful protest on roads.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2016