KARACHI: After holding charged press conferences and levelling allegations against each other for choosing to hold their respective public meetings for May 12 at the same place, Hakim Said Ground in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, and then brawling over the matter, the PPP and PTI both on Tuesday decided to change the venue.

The PPP will now hold its gathering at the Bagh-i-Jinnah while the PTI has selected a ground off Rashid Minhas Road near Aladdin Park for the purpose.

The announcements from both parties were welcomed by the residents of the city who at the same time expressed their astonishment as many believed that the same decision on Monday night by any of the two organisations could have saved the city from violence.

The leaders of the two sides were furious till Tuesday morning and wanted to get FIRs registered against each other’s workers.

The police, however, lodged a case against “hundreds of unknown political workers” on behalf of the state for violence and creating law and order situation. Activists of both parties had brawled with each other at the Hakim Said Ground late on Monday night.

PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, in a series of tweets, first held the PTI responsible for what had happened and then asked his party to back off from the ground.

He, however, defended his party’s right to hold their planned gathering at the contentious site, explaining how May 12 is a day of significance for his party and not the PTI, before supporting his case with a number of “facts”.

“To attack us in such a way is a sad commentary on the fascist tendencies of the PTI,” Bilawal said.

“However, in the interest of peace in Karachi, which we have fought so hard for, I not only ask my party to find another location, but also invite Imran Khan to hold his jalsa at the Hakim Said Ground,” he added.

PTI leaders, “paying salute” to Bilawal’s offer, turned it down and questioned its timing.

Firdaus Shamim Naqvi of the PTI while addressing a press conference at the party’s head office — Insaf House — said the PPP chairman should have come up with the same offer earlier.

“We were expecting the same gesture from the PPP on Monday night but they were not ready to listen to us. It suggests they wanted to sabotage our peaceful democratic exercise,” he said.

Earlier, the Aziz Bhatti police, on behalf of the state, filed an FIR against “unknown miscreants” under Sections 147, 148, 149, 337-A, 337-H (ii), 435 and 427 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2018