LAHORE, Sept 4: PML-N provincial president Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa has challenged the crackdown on the workers in the Lahore High Court.

The petitioner said the law-enforcement agencies at the behest of the government had started arresting the PML-N leaders and activists to stop them from welcoming the Sharifs. He said it would deprive the party of its right to accord an appropriate welcome to its exiled leaders on their arrival at Islamabad on Sept 10.

“The Lahore police barged into the house of Chaudhry Tanvir Khan, humiliated inmates and extended life threats to them as well,” the petitioner quoted an incident. Similar incidents had become the order of the day in other districts of Punjab where workers had been arrested and shifted to unknown places, he contended.

He said the police were violating the fundamental rights of the party workers who were neither facing any criminal charges nor were they required in any case. He further said the SHOs of the police stations concerned were also not in a position to tell the reasons for workers’ arrest that showed that some government high-ups had ordered them to launch a massive crackdown against the PML-N activists, according to the petition.

The petitioner claimed that some insiders had informed him that the workers were detained under section 3 of MPO, but no detention orders had been provided so far. He requested that the party’s detained workers should be released and the contempt proceedings initiated against the authorities concerned for not implementing the apex court’s verdict of Aug 23. —Reporter