A man, whom police claimed was affiliated with a “particular political party”, was shot dead by law enforcement officials on Rawalpindi’s Mall Road on Tuesday after he allegedly opened fire on security forces, injuring an official.
“The attacker, Muhammad Hussain, was immediately killed in retaliatory fire,” said a statement by Rawalpindi police.
The police added that evidence and “links have emerged from his mobile phone and other belongings”, adding that further investigation is ongoing.
“Law enforcement agencies remain fully prepared and committed to eliminating all forms of terrorism and incitement to unrest,” police said.
PTV News, quoting security sources, said the alleged assailant was a resident of Khyber district and an “active PTI member”. A PTI flag, bullets and weapons were also allegedly recovered from him, the report added.
In a statement aired on news channels following the incident, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar slammed PTI’s “politics of violence” after state media reported the incident.
Visuals of a red and green cloth, a gun, and bullets allegedly recovered from the alleged attacker were also televised by PTV News and during Tarar’s video statement.
The information minister said there was “no reason for opening fire on security personnel”, later confirming the incident location as Rawalpindi’s Mall Road.
Tarar also slammed the “politics of violence adopted by the PTI” and criticised its members for “coming equipped with weapons”.
The minister referred to the call for a long march to Islamabad, which has been announced by the PTI for September 27. He claimed that it was “on record that they always come armed at all their protests, open fire on security personnel and martyr them”.
“They do not believe in a peaceful protest, and today, the entire nation has witnessed their nefarious aims and objectives,” Tarar asserted, noting that the security personnel were targeted “in public in broad daylight”.
“This is their ideology; they believe in violence and such incidents. The PTI has always done politics of violence, and not a single one of their protests has been peaceful,” Tarar alleged.
Noting that a PTI flag and “other documents” were recovered from the alleged attacker in today’s incident, he claimed that the PTI’s aim was only to “spread anarchy in the country and ruin the law and order”.
The minister stressed that the PTI’s announcement of a long march came right after Pakistan was praised internationally after signing a joint defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Turkiye.
“Whenever Pakistan makes progress and garners respect, this is not digested by the PTI,” Tarar remarked, recalling a previous instance of the party announcing protests coinciding with the arrival of foreign leaders.
The minister reiterated his claim that the objective of “every PTI protest was to come equipped with weapons, open fire, pile up bodies, destroy law and order, and damage the country”.
However, PTI distanced itself from the incident, saying it had nothing to do with terrorism and that efforts were being made to link the party to it.
Reacting to remarks made by Tarar, PTI’s Islamabad regional president Amir Mughal said the party believed in peaceful and unarmed political struggle and rejected any attempt to associate it with acts of violence.
Mughal called for the facts to be brought before the public and urged the authorities not to use the incident to malign PTI.
He added that the narrative portraying PTI as a terrorist or anti-state organisation had already been rejected by the people of Pakistan, who, he claimed, supported the party by voting in large numbers on Feb 8, 2024.
Additional input from Mohammad Asghar
