KARACHI, May 27: The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf on Sunday gave the Muttahida Qaumi Movement 72 hours to remove all graffiti against its leader Imran Khan from across the province, warning that activists of the party would otherwise burn MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s effigies elsewhere in the province and would also adopt other ways of public protest.

The warning came from Sindh chief of the PTI Zubair Khan and other party leaders and activists on Sunday. They were about to leave for the airport to receive Imran Khan, but they were informed that the Punjab government had not allowed him to board a flight to Karachi.

Later, addressing a press conference, Zubair Khan said the Sindh government for banning entry of Imran Khan in Sindh, and that such tactics proved that the government was unnerved over the bold and courageous stand taken by the PTI chief vis-à-vis the ongoing movement for independence of judiciary and restoration of democracy.

He said wall-chalking and threats resorted to by the MQM was nothing but an attempt to cover up the growing resentment among masses against the MQM for its role in the May 12 mayhem. However, he said, the MQM’s tactics were bound to fail.

He announced that a protest rally would be taken out on Friday from Tower up to the Karachi Press Club to show that Karachi was not a fiefdom of a particular party.

Condemning police raids on the residences of PTI leaders and activists, he said the government had resorted to such cowardly acts to harass them.