PESHAWAR: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan said on Wednesday the second round of long march on Islamabad would be announced in the light of a ruling by the Supreme Court on the party’s petition.

“We are seeking ruling from the Supreme Court about protection for marchers. I will announce the date for the long march after the Supreme Court decision,” the former prime minister said while addressing PTI’s social media workers at the Chief Minister’s House.

Mr Khan had invited his party’s social media workers to acknowledge the work they had done during the previous march and prepare them for the second round. He said he wanted the apex court to grant protection to the PTI’s march and answer whether Pakistanis have the fundamental right to hold a peaceful protest.

“The mistakes we committed in the long march on May 25 will not be repeated in its second round,” he said.

PTI chief says mistakes made on May 25 will not be repeated this time

The social media workers chanted slogans in favour of their party when Mr Khan started his speech.

This time, he added, they would be marching with better planning, conceding they had not done any planning previously. He said there was some misunderstanding regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling that there would be no obstacle or violence in the way of the marchers. “We didn’t know that they [federal government] do not care about ruling of anyone.”

Mr Khan reiterated that there was no room to be neutral in the war between right and wrong and said that “Allah advises in the Holy Quran to stand by the righteous”. He told the PTI’s social media workers that Pakistan was passing through a defining moment of its history.

The former premier highlighted the way the federal and Punjab governments had responded to the PTI’s Azadi March on May 25 by “firing [teargas] shells and wrongfully using Punjab police” and said that was why the party wanted a ruling from the apex court this time.

“The violent, barbaric way in which shelling was done ... law enforcement agencies do not do this violence on their own people. Only criminals do this. All these people [present rulers] should have been already in prison for their crimes and corruption, but there is no justice in the country,” he added.

Pakistan’s biggest problem was injustice, he said, adding that citizens would have to get their right through jihad. Courts were there to provide protection to the weak and helpless people, he said.

Mr Khan said Pakistan would be put on the road to development if “we get rid of the incumbent corrupt government”.

According to Dawn.com, the former premier alleged that the PML-N-led coalition government was “threatening people and scaring them”, claiming that according to evidence collected by the PTI, the shells fired at party supporters were “the ones used only against terrorists”.

The PTI chief called on his supporters to banish fear, saying: “I do not fear anything because I believe we are fighting this war for our [future] generations.”

He said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah were “criminals” and “the most cowardly people”.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2022