KARACHI: Enraged workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf stor­med into their own party office, known as Insaf House, off Sharea Faisal, vandalised the facility and smashed the windowpanes in protest over “unjustified” distribution of party tickets for the upcoming general elections on Saturday.

The violent episode, however, did not invite police intervention as the PTI leadership restrained the law enforcement agency from intervening, terming the incident an “internal” matter of the party.

Party sources said that a meeting of the parliamentary board of PTI’s Sindh chapter was going on when around a dozen men — some armed with sticks — stormed into the office and ransacked several departments inside including the finance and information departments.

“They came with preparation as they had spray paint for wall chalking,” said a source. “In the graffiti inside the office, they blamed PTI leaders Firdaus Shamim Naqvi and Arif Alvi for distributing tickets among their blue-eyed persons by ignoring the true PTI workers. The meeting [of the parliamentary board] was postponed for the time being and there was no report of a physical clash between the workers inside the office.”

When contacted, Gulshan-i-Iqbal SP Ghulam Murtaza said that the area police after getting reports of some disturbance approached the party leadership and moved to Insaf House but they were informed that the matter was not that serious and did not require police attention.

“They [PTI leaders] said it was their internal party issue which they would resolve amicably. Similarly, we did not receive any report which disturbed any routine life in the area due to that episode. It all happened inside the party’s office,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2018