LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) is determined to hold Independence Day celebrations and a rally on The Mall on Monday amidst Punjab police’s fierce crackdown on the party leaders and workers.

The PTI has planned to stage a mass Independence Day rally from GPO Chowk to Masjid-i-Shuhada, wherein the participants will be holding national flags. The PTI has called party workers and supporters from across the central Punjab region.

In the meanwhile, the Punjab police raided the house of Punjab Insaf Lawyers Forum president Chaudhry Zubair Ahmad Kisana and ransacked his house’s furniture, fixtures and utensils.

Mr Kisana’s family sources claimed that some 45 policemen in uniform and plainclothes reached Mr Kisana’s residence in Township in five vehicles and smashed open the main gate. The family identified one vehicle each of Sattukatla police and Quaid-i-Azam Industrial Estate police station.

The videos made and shared about the situation inside the house after the raid explained that all furniture was broken, LEDs pulled out of hanging brackets and thrown on the floor, all glass items were broken and even utensils in the kitchens on the ground and upper floor were broken.

Similarly, the police had few days ago raided PTI leader Waseem Gulzar’s hotel in the Gulberg-III area and registered an FIR on `obscenity charges’ but then raided at his home as well as his in-laws home and ransacked their household articles, including furniture, LEDs, glass items and other articles.

Family sources say the police raided only to pressurise Mr Gulzar, his wife and in-laws to leave the PTI. The family members were on the run.

Speaking to Dawn, PTI central Punjab additional general secretary advocate Azeemullah Khan said the police had prepared lists of party leaders and claimed that he himself had been named in a list of 46 members from Model Town area alone.

He said the police were also arresting the kids of party leaders, where they could not arrest the leaders for not being at home. He said police raided UC 228 chairman Waheed Meo’s residence in Kahna circle and picked his two sons aged 13 and 17. He said police released the 13-year old boy but kept the elder son and pressured the leader to give an affidavit that they had nothing to do with the PTI. Similarly, he said, a UC-163 leader’s son and nephew were picked up and police made the same demand.

The PTI leader said police picked a medical student, son of PTI Mandi Bahauddin president and ex-MNA Haji Imtiaz, as well as the son of PTI MPA ticket-holder from Mandi Bahauddin Tariq Tarar. He said both leaders were also told to make an announcement at a presser that they had left the party and only then their sons would be released. Since Mr Tarar’s son was seriously ill, he claimed, the leader announced that he had left the PTI and got his son released from police custody.

The PTI central Punjab additional general secretary said these were few examples of police highhandedness and there werehundreds of such episodes happening across the province as the government wanted to eliminate the party – as already mentioned by the PTI chairman Imran Khan. Still, he said, the PTI had called a maximum number of party leaders and workers, including lawyers from across 10 districts of the central Punjab, to participate in the rally.

“It will still be a big show to celebrate Independence Day,” advocate Khan said.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2023