ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of goods containers were brought to Islamabad to block roads, Lahore and motorway being sealed, motorbikes seized and homes raided in Punjab province, telephones and emails being tapped, petrol shortages created to immobilise transport.

This was what a senior leader of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) decried in the National Assembly on Friday as a repetition of the Musharraf-era `harassment’ to block the party’s Aug 14 protest march on Islamabad as he called upon party workers to besiege police stations in Punjab to retrieve impounded motorcycles for use in the march.

But PTI vice-chairman and parliamentary leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi emphatically said that “you do whatever you like, the march will come to Islamabad on August 14, and will be peaceful,” warning that the government’s alleged terror tactics would be responsible for any unpleasant happening.

Mr Qureshi’s outburst came during a brief sitting of the house amid mounting political tensions in the country for which he blamed the Punjab provincial government of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif more than the federal government.

“(If) the Punjab government is conspiring against the central government, I don’t know,” he said, alleging that the provincial police had begun impounding motorcycles in response to PTI chairman Imran Khan’s recent statement that 100,000 motorcycles would join his party’s Azadi March from Lahore to Islamabad for a dharna (sit-in) outside the parliament house, which he says will not be lifted until the end of what he calls Sharif brothers’ monarchy and a decision to hold early fresh elections.

To his party workers, he said: “Go and stand before police stations,… gherao them, and demand return of your motorcycles.”

Mr Qureshi estimated the number of containers brought to Islamabad at 900, and said that Lahore and the Motorway to Islamabad were “being sealed”, complaining also of tapping of “our telephones and emails” by the federal government’s Intelligence Bureau -- amid the talk of complete blockage of mobile phones on Aug 13-14 -- government-prompted petrol shortages, particularly in the PTI-ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, employees of the Capital Development Authority removing PTI banners in Islamabad, arrests of party activists and police raids on their houses, including one on his own home in Multan.

“This is what you experienced in the era of (Gen) Musharraf,” he said.

The PTI leader also seemed to have adig at opposition leader Khursheed Ahmed Shah for a perceived soft-pedalling lately over the government’s invocation of Article 245 of the Constitution to deploy troops in Islamabad without judicial oversight despite an earlier warning that his Pakistan People’s Party would be “ahead of all parties” to protest if the notification issued for this last month was not revoked.

“Let us see if the government acts upon you advice,” Mr Qureshi said to Mr Shah, who seemed unprovoked but he requested Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq to secure, for him to see, documents to prove a claim made by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, in a speech to the house on Tuesday, that Article 245 had been invoked 24 times by previous governments since 2007.

With little time available due to early adjournment of the house for Friday prayers, Mr Shah could not resume his speech that he had only begun on Thursday to open a debate on President Mamnoon Hussain’s address to a June 2 joint sitting of parliament but gave up apparently to honour the prime minister’s wish to cut short that day’s proceedings for consultations over the PTI threat.

Neither the prime minister, who has been busy meeting politicians from several opposition parties nor any of his senior ministers who occupy the front row of the treasury benches came to the house before it was adjourned until 5pm on Monday.

Published in Dawn, Aug 9th, 2014