KARACHI: Police on Monday booked several leaders and workers of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) in a terrorism case and arrested one of the organisers of a rally the PTM had staged on Sunday.

The case was registered on the complaint of Sohrab Goth SHO Rao Zakir on behalf of the state against 16 PTM leaders and 250-300 workers who allegedly used provocative language against state institutions during their speeches in the Sunday rally in a Sohrab Goth playground.

A senior official, requesting anonymity, said that one of the organisers, Alam Zeb Mehsud, was arrested.

The police have invoked Sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups, etc), 186 (obstructing public servant in discharge of public functions), 500 (punishment for defamation) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the Pakistan Penal Code read with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997 in the FIR.

According to the contents of the FIR, the workers of PTM under “directions of Manzoor Pashteen” organised a rally at a ground behind Al-Asif Square on Sunday.

The complainant SHO said that upon receiving the information of the rally he rushed to the scene and asked local PTM leader Naurazay Tareen to show permission of the meeting.

“He became jittery, created hindrance in official work and chanted slogans against state institutions and police and other people also came at the stage and joined,” the SHO stated in the FIR.

The organisers did not listen to the SHO and spread provocation, creating “an atmosphere of serious fear and chaos”.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2019