Key points
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) leader Rashid Mahmood Soomro thanked PPP leaders for their support to the party's sit-ins.
Addressing the participants of a sit-in at Hub River road, the JUI-F leader said that he was thankful to PPP leaders for taking up the matter of first information reports (FIRs) against JUI-F leaders and workers.
He said that PPP's leadership decided not to take any action against sit-ins and to probe the matter of FIRs.
A large number of PML-N workers have joined the JUI-F's sit-in at Hub River road in Karachi.
Several PML-N activists at the sit-in were holding their party flag. The sit-in culminated at 8pm and will resume tomorrow.
A large number of political workers belonging to the JUI-F and the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) have blocked the highway connecting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan near Dera Ismael Khan.
The sit-in not only disrupted KP-Balochistan traffic but also disconnected the road link between Rawalpindi and Quetta.
JUI-F protesters — who had halted their sit-in for the night — returned to the Hub River Road at 9am today. Party leader Maulana Umar Sadiq has said that the sit-in will be held from 8am to 8pm every day as JUI-F leadership has instructed protesters not to cause inconvenience to passengers.
JUI-F protesters continued the blockage of Dandai and Khwagay Oba points on the Karakoram Highway despite rain and lowering temperatures.
The blockage of the international route has caused inconveniences for passengers, including women, children and elderly people.
Moachko police have lodged an FIR against 250 people — including JUI-F leaders and workers — who participated in blocking the highway linking Karachi with Balochistan through Hub.
According to Hub Area SHO Mohammed Wasim, those nominated in the FIR were carrying batons. JUI-F provincial secretary general Allama Rashid Mehmood Soomro is among the leaders nominated in the FIR. No arrests have been made so far, however.
Police have invoked sections 147 (punishment for riots), 148 (rioting armed with deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 427 (mischief).
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The ruling PTI has condemned the language used by participants of the JUI-F dharna as "unacceptable".
The PTI Core Committee, which met with Prime Minister Imran Khan in the chair, also said that a "major casualty" of the JUI-F-led protest was the Kashmir cause "which played into India's hand", according to a statement issued by the PM Office.
The committee decided to examine alleged violation of laws during the speeches made by opposition leaders during the sit-in.
"The Core Committee also unanimously decided that the main opposition leaders showed their opportunism by becoming party to the dharna, simply to seek a way out of their corruption dilemma," the statement said.
JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has directed his party's protest organisers to end their sit-ins across the country at night due to cold weather and in order to facilitate the public.
The roadblocks and sit-ins should continue from dawn to dusk, he told party workers.
Speaking to media, he said that the sit-ins will continue for "many" days and that they will be held inside various cities in a few days' time.
JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman says his party will remove the ruling regime with the power of the masses.
"We want to dislodge the government in a peaceful manner," he said while addressing the participants of a sit-in in Nowshera.
"We are tribal people and have demonstrated our power from Karachi to Chitral," he added.
JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has told participants of a sit-in in Nowshera that the entire country was blocked "within 24 hours" of the party's call.
"It has been proven today that we have the capacity to block the entire Pakistan," he said.
"Punjab, Dera Ismail Khan, the gateway to Afghanistan, the Karakoram Highway and Islamabad are also closed," he added.
The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has issued notices to JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman and others, seeking their response to a petition against the party's sit-ins across the country.
Justice Ikramullah and Justice Waqar Ahmad during the hearing of the petition reminded the JUI-F that it had assured the judiciary of remaining peaceful. The court remarked that the party should keep its conduct accordingly.
The petitioner contended that blocking roads is a violation of citizens' basic and Constitutional rights. The court will resume the hearing on November 28.
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari says his party delivered on the promises it made with JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman regarding the anti-government Azadi March.
"However, as far as civil disobedience is concerned we are not in favour of it," Bilawal told reporters after chairing a meeting of the PPP core committee.
The PPP was not apprised of the discussions held between the JUI-F chief and PML-Q leaders, he said, adding that he could not comment on PPP's participation in JUI-F's Plan-B until the former has been provided "complete information".
Bilawal was confident that the country will have a new leader by next year and the "selected" prime minister will be sent home.
He said as the Azadi March has now entered its Plan-B, the PPP will continue its mass-contact campaign and protests.
The PPP chairperson announced that the party's next foundation day rally will be in Azad Kashmir during which its future strategy will be shared.
Under the so-called Plan-B, scores of JUI-F workers from the Hazara division have blocked the Silk Road near Mansehra.
JUI-F leaders Maulana Hidayatullah Shah, Mufti Nasir Mahmood and others are heading the sit-in. The protest has disrupted traffic on the road as a large number of vehicles have lined up on both sides of the sit-in.
Similarly, party workers from KP's southern districts have blocked the Indus Highway near Bannu.
PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari is chairing a meeting of the party's core committee in Islamabad to devise the party's response to recent political developments in the country.
Sources told DawnNewsTV that PPP's top brass is sitting together to decide whether the party will support the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl's (JUI-F) Plan-B or not.
JUI-F Shangla workers have blocked the Karakoram Highway at Dandai, Shangla.
Motorists are stuck due to the closure of the international route for all sorts of traffic.
JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is set to visit Chakdara, a town in KP's Lower Dir district, to meet supporters participating in the protests, a senior party leader said.
"He (Rehman) spent the night in Swat and he will address the gathering upon his return [to Chakdara]," the worker said.
He added that preparations for Rehman's visit have been made.
The GT Road in Islamabad has been blocked for traffic as JUI-F leaders and workers prepared to offer Friday prayers at the spot.
JUI-F leaders Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, Maulana Abdul Majeed Hazarvi, Maulana Abdul Rauf, Hafiz Ziaur Rehman and Mufti Owais arrived at GT Road in Islamabad to join party workers who gathered there.
Police have been deployed to ensure law and order.
A first information report (FIR) has been registered against JUI-F Sindh's leadership including provincial secretary general secretary Maulana Rashid Mehmood Soomro and others for the Hub River Road dharna.
The case was registered on Thursday by police under Section 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) and 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
According to the FIR, 200-250 people suddenly closed Hub River Road and were carrying sticks.
In Chakdara, JUI-F workers use containers, that were placed to stop the protest, to block the road and stage a sit-in.
After Friday prayers, JUI-F workers will block the Quetta-Karachi highway in Khuzdar, sources say.
According to sources, during a JUI-F party meeting, Plan B of the protest was discussed and a strategy was compiled to make it successful.
Party chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman will visit all the dharna venues, the sources said. Today he will visit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) — Nowshera and Malakand division — after which he will visit Sindh the next day.
He will visit the dharna venues in Balochistan last.
PPP's earlier promise to provide all "possible assistance" to JUI-F protest was put to the test after the latter announced its intention to block main roads and highways all over the country as part of its 'Plan B'.
"[...] Definitely it’s very clear from day one that we have supported all the protest activities which don’t disturb a common man’s life. We appreciate that the sit-in or Azadi March remained peaceful throughout the two weeks," PPP leader Saeed Ghani said while talking to Dawn.
Senior JUI-F leader in Sindh Qari Mohammad Usman assured that the party is "peaceful and not challenging anyone, neither affecting common man’s life". At the same time, he shared that in addition to blocking Hub River Road in Karachi and cut the business capital’s link with Balochistan, JUI-F workers will also cut off routes between Sindh and Punjab by staging protests in Sukkur, Panno Aqil, Shikarpur and Ghotki and block Sukkur-Multan highway.
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"On that side of his ‘long march’ on Islamabad on Oct 27, Maulana Fazlur Rehman was a less angry man," writes Asha'ar Rehman in today's Dawn.
"He was basking in all the praise he was getting for his magical ability to stitch up average material into stuff better than just being presentable. He had allies, not fully committed ones, but who had promise and the potential to be useful to the JUI-F chief’s advantage. True to the old wise words, it was only the journey itself which revealed the real face and worth of these supposed fellow travellers.
"The support Maulana Fazl must have been going for must have left him angry. He may not want to show it until he thinks it necessary at some moment in future to berate the PML-N and PPP for refusing to lend the protest the comprehensive, all-party appearance that he craved. But there have been murmurs in his camp that speak of how the big two in the opposition have let the raiders of Islamabad down.
"The chasm is going to be felt, even though the PPP and PML-N must have had valid reasons of their own to not come too close to the rabid JUI-F crowd."
Read the full piece here.
"2020 is far away. I see elections in 2019," JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman said while talking to media after his meeting with PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.
Read more here.
As Plan B of the JUI-F protests came into effect on Thursday, the Chaudhry brothers of Gujrat swung into action again, lauding Maulana Fazlur Rehman for having emerged as the "genuine leader of the opposition".
PML-Q president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi met the JUI-F chief at the residence of the JUI-F’s Senator Talha Mehmood, but neither side divulged the agenda of the meeting.
Rehman said there was no scheduled agenda of the meeting and both sides had gathered at Mehmood's residence as he had invited them.
"During the Azadi march, the Chaudhry brothers were trying to find out a solution. We have been meeting in the past too and our demand for resignation of the government remains undeterred, while their stance too has not changed," the JUI-F chief said.
He reiterated his claim that the government was weakening and shaking.
"We are still in protest; we represent the sentiment of the people."
However, he praised the PML-Q leaders for their efforts to save democracy in Pakistan.
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JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman says his party will not stop at blocking roads and highways across the country and will only end its protest after sending the "illegitimate" government home.
"We will go beyond than just blocking roads, and even further," Rehman said while talking to journalist Hamid Mir on Geo News.
He expressed the confidence that the protest will achieve some of its objectives "before the year's end".
JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman is chairing a meeting of local party leaders from Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
The meeting is being held at the Parliament Lodges.
The leaders are holding consultations of JUI-F's Plan-B, under which it has blocked major highways and roads across the country.
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) central leader Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri has asked the government to confront his party directly instead of "using institutions".
Addressing the participants of the sit-in at Islamabad's Motorway Chowk, Haideri said the JUI-F has no other option but to lock down the entire country.
"The Plan-B will send [Prime Minister] Imran Khan home," he claimed.
He said the government was unable to close down Attock bridge before the Azadi March but the JUI-F will block it tomorrow.
"Our fight is for the supremacy of the parliament and the Constitution," he stressed.
Workers of the JUI-F are staging a sit-in at Motorway Chowk in the capital as part of the party's 'Plan-B'.
— Photos courtesy of JUI-F
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) workers have blocked the highway connecting Karachi with Quetta at Khuzdar.
The party workers erected blockades at the zero point before holding a protest sit-in. JUI-F leader Maulana Qamaruddin is heading the sit-in.
A large number of vehicles have lined up on both sides of the sit-in.
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, after a meeting with PML-Q leaders, has reiterated that the party's demand for the resignation of Prime Minister Imran Khan is intact and the protest will continue till the demand is met.
"Azadi March will continue, one congregation has ended and a large number of protests are being held," he said.
The JUI-F chief asked the provincial governments and district administrations to exercise caution and not to push the sit-ins towards violence. He said that the party was exercising its right to protest in a democratic way.
Addressing a press conference, Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry says that they [the government] will tackle 'Plan B' of the JUI-F protests the same way that they had tackled 'Plan A'.
"Maulana sahib has left quite a lot of work for CDA," he said, referring to the Islamabad sit-in.
Chaudhry alleged that JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman has a narrative of "extremism".
"The religious politics of the country have been damaged by this dharna [...] The narrative is one of the division of society," he said.
"Thank God it was unsuccessful," the minister said, adding that the JUI-F chief should learn a lesson from this.
The JUI-F is in a meeting with opposition parties in Balochistan. The party is expected to hold a press conference at 4pm.
In an alert issued by JUI-F's information department, if Hub Road is blocked, trains should not be stopped.
The notice said that if a road is blocked, ambulances and baraats should be permitted to pass through. People coming from overseas or going to the airport should be shown alternative routes.
Protesters were instructed to avoid using sticks. Additionally, shops should not be forcibly closed.
The alert said that party workers should be directed to avoid causing damage to public property and there should be announcements that people who are caught doing these "are not our people in fact they are miscreants who will handed over to the administration".
Additionally, briefings should be given on social media and workers should be updated with occasional video messages.
Addressing protesters at Shahra-e-Resham, secretary general of JUI-F Mansehra Maulana Nasir Mehmood says they will continue their protest until they get instructions from their party leadership to do otherwise.
Addressing the crowd, he said that they would continue their protest not for a day but a month if the leadership announced.
The JUI-F dharna is ongoing in Jacobabad for a second day.
Participants blocked a national highway at Zero Point. The flow of traffic has been suspended due to the dharna.
Close to Mansehra district, Shahra-e-Resham has been blocked at Chattar Plain in KP. Maulana Attaur Rehman is leading the protests.
The road is an important trade route that connects Pakistan to China and KP to Gilgit.
Chakdara Road in Malakand division has been blocked by protesters.
Workers from Chitral, Dir, Swat, Buner and other parts of the Malakand division gathered at Chakdara Chowk to block the main road, causing a large traffic jam.
Workers have started to arrive in Nowshera from Mardan, Charsadda and Peshawar. A road has been blocked in Hakimabad, where a large contingent of police is also present.
Additionally, JUI-F workers have closed Indus Highway in Bannu. A party worker said cars will only be allowed to pass through in the case of an emergency, adding that the road has been shut indefinitely.
A meeting of the Balochistan chapter of JUI-F has been called.
Provincial party chief Maulana Abdul Wasay, who will head the meeting, said in Balochistan roads are being closed in four places:
Following the decisions taken during the meeting, the roads will be closed, Wasay said.
JUI-F leader Qari Usman says that as per the party leadership's announcement, highways linking Karachi with Hub, Balochistan will be blocked after 2pm.
Maulana Umar Sadiq will lead the dharna in front of Jamiah Farooqia, Karachi.
A road leading from Sindh to Balochistan has been blocked at Zero Point as protestors gather and chant slogans of 'Go Niazi Go'.
As JUI-F wraps up its sit-in in Islamabad, premier's aide Firdous Ashiq Awan has said that she is "praying that God gives [Maulana Fazlur Rehman] the ability to make decisions that are connected with the country's betterment".
Speaking to reporters outside the Islamabad High Court, Awan said that Rehman brought his party workers to the capital as "fuel" to topple the government.
"As a political worker, we felt sad that a leader had used the wishes of innocent workers as fuel for his personal ambitions," she said.
"All of his [Maulana's] script were upturned," Awan remarked and went on to recite an Urdu verse to further her point: "Barey be-abroo ho kay terey koochey se ham nikley."
She said that the JUI-F's 'Plan B' will "be a flop just like the first episode" of the protest.
JUI-F announced the closure of major roads across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa today.
The party's media cell on Wednesday said that the roads would be closed as part of 'Plan-B' of the protests.
The road blocked announced by the party in the province are:
The party urged workers to remain peaceful and give way to patients commuting.
"Maybe Wednesday’s announcement of the JUI-F’s new map will still be looked upon as a face-saving exercise by many. The problem is, what if the maulana really means it?," asks Dawn's editorial in today's paper.
"He has already shown that he accepts and rejects advice at his own convenience and has sufficiently exhibited a mind free from any reasonable limits for anyone to take him and his Plan B lightly. His protest may be entering an extremely sensitive area and the JUI-F chief could find himself in a corner with no escape.
The plan, if carried out, could have devastating effects on daily life.
"The JUI-F threatens to expand the measures to paralyse all manner of movement on the national road network, and the plan, if carried out, could have devastating effects on daily life."
Read the full editorial here.