RAWALPINDI, Jan 2: Before marching its millions on Islamabad on January 14, Dr Tahirul Qadri’s Tehrik-i-Minhajul Quran (TMQ) may have to fight a legal challenge to the march in the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court.
While the local TMQ “informed” the local administration that the millions from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Kashmir would be passing through Rawalpindi on that date, two citizens petitioned the LHC on Wednesday to stop Dr Tahirul Qadri’s planned “anti-democracy march”.
“We have just informed the administration, not sought any permission,” explained Suhail Abbasi, a spokesman for the local TQM.
District Coordination Officer of Rawalpindi Saqib Zafar said that he had forwarded the TQM’s communication to the Punjab government. “It is too early for me to say what would be the decision,” he told Dawn.
Meanwhile, the petitioners Hafiz Ibrar Bukhari and Imran Abbasi through their counsel Asad Abbasi advocate adopted before the court that the proposed rally was an attempt to abrogate and subvert the constitution.
The petitioner has prayed to the court to issue order to restrain Dr Tahirul Qadri and MQM from their ‘illegal act/design’. The court should also ask the federal and provincial government to act in accordance with the law to save the constitution and its mandate.
The petitioner told the court that the proposed million march was aimed at derailing the political system in the country and to cause hazardous effects on the lives of the common man.
The petitioners adopted before the court that the proposed action was unconstitutional, threat to fundamental rights of the citizens of Pakistan.
The petitioners requested the court to order initiation of legal action against those who were trying to jeopardize the whole system.
On the other hand, the TQM spokesman Suhail Abbasi told Dawn that his party had informed the administration that three rallies from Lahore, Peshawar and Kashmir would converge on the city on the said date.
He said the TMQ chairman, Dr Tahirul Qadri, would lead the rally from Lahore which would join the two other rallies from Peshawar and Kashmir at Faizabad from where they would march on Islamabad.
