KARACHI: Workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) on Sunday used sticks, chairs and bottles against each other at a public meeting organised by the party to commemorate its 23rd foundation day.

The event held at a ground in Gulshan-i-Iqbal was marred by mismanagement as two groups of the party workers clashed with each other.

The venue was decorated with party flags. Before the public meeting, a musical show was arranged. A documentary was also screened about Imran Khan. Adeq­uate security arrangements were made by deploying policemen. The problem started when acting president of PTI Sindh Haleem Adil Shaikh was addressing the rally.

In his brief speech, Mr Shaikh said that many things were said against the PTI government, but soon the situation would improve. Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh had taken the charge of the finance ministry and he would be able to better the country’s economy, he added.

The workers opposed to him started raising slogan ‘Go Haleem go’, while his supporters clashed with them.

Seeing the situation going out of control, PTI leaders Firdaus Shamim Naqvi and Khurram Sherzaman left the venue.

The PTI workers also misbehaved with media persons.

There was a display of fireworks but the cake-cutting ceremony to commemorate the foundation day of the party was not performed.

When people were leaving the venue, party workers were still fighting with each other. Some of them suffered injuries.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2019