LAHORE: Insaf Professionals Forum (IPF) Chairperson Dr Yasmin Rashid says Pakistan Tehreek-i-Inaf (PTI) workers will return to march on Islamabad with a renewed vigour whether the Supreme Court allows protection to the party’s peaceful protest march or not.

“The PTI will not let Pakistan go into the hands of thieves and looters,” she resolved.

Without disclosing the PTI strategy for the march, Dr Rashid asserted that PTI workers would go fully prepared to face the misuse of state machinery by the PML-N government. She said the PTI would seek every kind of legal remedy by registering cases against the government for the torture of peaceful protesters, submitting privilege motions with the speaker and urging the Supreme Court to give cover to the peaceful long march of the PTI.

Flanked by MNAs and IPF members, Dr Rashid challenged interior minister Rana Sanaullah to come face to face and the PTI women leaders would be enough to handle him.

Terming Sanaullah as a killer of 14 people in the Model Town tragedy, Dr Rashid acknowledged the PTI government’s mistake that it did not pursue the case, and get Sanaullah convicted and punished.

“If Sanaullah had been convicted, the police would not have dared to torture peaceful protesters of the PTI,” she said.

During May 25 march, she said, the government wanted that there should be a clash, but PTI chairman Imran Khan took a prudent decision to save the lives of people and even those of policemen, who eventually are the Pakistanis. “It pains me to know about the death of a policeman,” she said.

Lauding the media’s support during the long march, Dr Rashid said the state power could have been misused further leading to danger to many protesters’ lives if the media was not there. She said police fired some 34,000 teargas shells and tortured women, including herself as well as her sister and daughter. She said that she had gone to the police station, but her application was not received and instead, an FIR was lodged against “unidentified persons”.“This is the fit case to take suo motu by the Supreme Court,” she urged.

She also chided PML-N vice-president Maryam Nawaz for leaving her own children in London to enjoy the wealth looted from Pakistan and added that she and her family members were ready to sacrifice their lives to attain real independence with an independent foreign policy. She chided the PML-N government for putting the masses under massive economic stress.

Dr Rashid said the PML-N government had amended the NAB ordinance and the EVM law to protect Sharif family members from the clutches of NAB besides clearing the way to engineer elections.

Stating that the NAB ordinance changed that classified “assets” like those held by the accused, including by his/her spouse, relatives or associates, Dr Rashid said the amendment bill had removed “spouse, relatives or associates” to save Maryam Nawaz. “Maryam Nawaz is a frontwoman of her father Nawaz Sharif in corruption and money laundering,” she said.

MNA Andleeb Abbas said the PML-N government had put the 220 million masses under severe economic stress. She called PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari to relaunch his “End price-hike” long march to save the masses from the economic stress.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2022