PESHAWAR: Thousands of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf workers from Peshawar, Malakand divisions and other areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa left for the federal capital to attend the party’s public gathering in Sangjani area on the outskirts of Islamabad on Sunday, party leaders claimed.

Party leadership said the workers led by members of the National and provincial assemblies left according to their schedule. They said convoys from Peshawar left for Islamabad around 12 noon.

“There were no issues when we entered the Punjab jurisdiction. If otherwise we were all prepared with the required machinery to remove the barricades,” a senior PTI leader said, adding they did not face any issue on their way from Peshawar to Attock district.

PTI leaders said all the convoys from Peshawar, Mardan, Nowshera, Swabi, Charsadda, Malakand, Dir, Buner, Chitral, Bajaur and other districts stopped at the Swabi Interchange of the Peshawar Motorway, where the workers were later led by Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur for Islamabad.

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In Swabi, apart from heavy machinery to remove the barriers, ambulances were also available equipped with all the necessary items to tackle in case of the police resorted to shelling.

Sources said some members from the PTI provincial leadership and workers were sent to the KP-Punjab boundary to check the environment and to report back if there were any ‘issues’ there.

Since Swabi district was the meeting point, all the convoys gathered at the interchange, the sources said.

Meanwhile, former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaisar in a video message said the main objective of holding the Islamabad gathering was to push for release of the incarcerated former prime minister and PTI founder Imran Khan and other leaders.

He said the government had issued a no-objection certificate and the court had also allowed the PTI to hold the gathering, yet the federal and Punjab governments held the people from Islamabad and Rawalpindi hostage.

“Those who talk about the law are violating the law themselves,” he said, adding PTI workers did not believe in chaos and remained peaceful. He also said it was their constitutional and legal right to hold a public gathering.

Meanwhile, thousands of PTI workers, leaders and lawmakers from Malakand division gathered at the Swat Motorway’s Chakadara Interchange and left for Islamabad.

According to sources at the toll plaza, a caravan of over 350 vehicles of PTI workers from Swat, Lower and Upper Dir, Chitral, Bajaur and Malakand gathered there. They said the rally was led by party’s divisional president and provincial minister Fazal Hakeem Khan Yousafzai, MNA Junaid Akbar and MPA Shakeel Khan.

Before the departure, Mr Yousafzai in his address to workers at Chakdara Chowk insisted the Sangjani rally would be a record one.

Also, PTI rally led by its core committee member Fazal Mohammad Khan and MPA Arshad Umarzai left Charsadda for Islamabad.

A large number of party workers and lawmakers also joined the procession at the motorway interchange. The participants chanted slogans against the central government and for release of Imran Khan.

Speaking to mediapersons on this occasion, MNA Fazal Mohammad Khan said they would continue movement till the release of Imran Khan from jail.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2024