LAHORE:Criticising “political mob culture” and institutional corruption, Punjab Assembly Speaker Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan on Friday declared that repeated armed marches on the federal capital are deliberate acts of crime rather than a political right, warning that such sieges directly fuel economic distress and risk repeating the violence of May 9.

Speaking to journalists at the Punjab Assembly, the speaker drew a sharp distinction between legitimate political protest and targeted subversion.

He recalled how violent groups originating from Peshawar and Lahore have repeatedly laid siege to Islamabad — from bringing heavy machinery and cranes in 2021 to torching 29 military installations on May 9.

Questioning the governance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he criticised how mobs are mobilised from a province where law and order, education, and healthcare “are in complete collapse”, only to be used as battering rams against the nation’s capital.

Highlighting historical disruptions, including protests that derailed the visit of the Chinese president, he urged sensitive agencies to unmask the forces backing these recurring visual patterns of unrest.

While acknowledging the improved law and order in Punjab through the Safe City project and Crime Control Department, the speaker emphasised that Nawaz Sharif remains the sole figure of hope capable of steering the country out of its current crises.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2026