LAHORE: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s five senior leaders incarcerated in Kot Lakhpat Jail have demanded fresh, free and fair general elections in the country, while learning lessons from the 1970 debacle, otherwise India will go ahead with its nefarious designs.

In an open letter on Saturday, PTI vice chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Senator Ejaz Chaudhry, former governor Omar Sarfraz Cheema, Dr Yasmin Rashid and Mian Mahmoodur Rasheed stated that Pakistan’s two provinces, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, were undergoing the worst kind of terrorism, turmoil and instability.

They said both provinces were geologically important for having natural and mineral reserves, and the world was also eyeing those resources.

“Those rare earth materials had become significantly important for the outside world,” they highlighted.

The PTI leaders said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been a peaceful province during the PTI’s rule owing to former premier Imran Khan’s balanced policy but before and after Khan, the province remained a hub of terrorism that destroyed the economy and the society.

They said Islamabad’s relations with Kabul were strained for the past three years and on the other hand, Russia had accepted Taliban’s government in Afghanistan.

“The Afghan nation that continued calling Pakistan as its second home, is not only annoyed but opposing Pakistan,” the letter stated and added that friends had turned into foes and enemy’s proxies were attacking Pakistan from the land called ‘strategic depth’.

The PTI leaders said the federal government’s non-cooperation with the people-mandated KP government was a failed policy and asked how shunning dialogue was a wise approach.

Speaking about Balochistan, the party’s jailed leaders said the province had become a hub of anti-state elements and the law and order was so precarious that dozens of terrorism incidents had been reported during the past two weeks or so.

They regretted that both federal and Balochistan province governments had no idea about the gravity and seriousness of the situation.

“Both the governments, making tall claims, using state power and arresting Baloch leaders, were actually further deteriorating law and order instead of curbing terrorism in the province.”

The PTI leaders said Balochistan’s position required a serious situation analysis as the foreign infiltration and local issues needed to be tackled separately.

They regretted that the Balochistan government too was a fake-mandated Form-47 government and was contributing to increasing problems rather than resolving issues.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2025