ISLAMABAD, April 20: Members of the National Assembly and Senators of People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) will hold a protest march from Parliament House to the Supreme Court building here on Thursday to protest against the “continued political victimisation” of the party’ leaders and workers.
This was announced by opposition leader in the Senate Mian Raza Rabbani, PPP Secretary-General Raja Pervez Ashraf, MNAs Syed Khurshid Shah, Chaudhry Manzoor Ahmed, Zulfiqar Gondal and Qamaruz Zaman Kaira while speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday.
Raja Pervez Ashraf said a joint meeting of the parliamentary committees of the party in the National Assembly and the Senate was held on Wednesday afternoon in which the members resolved to continue their protest till the release of all the arrested party leaders and workers. Without setting any deadline, he said, the PPP MNAs and senators would also court arrest, if the workers were not released.
The PPP leaders alleged that the operation launched against the party by the government on April 13 was still continuing and they were still receiving reports from various parts of Punjab about arrests of party workers, office-bearers and even their relatives.
They regretted the government was registering cases against the party workers under Anti-Terrorism Act. They said they had received information that the government had started shifting over 700 workers from Camp Jail and Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore to various prisons in the province so that they could not be located by the party leaders for filing their bail applications in the Lahore High Court.
They said several party office-bearers had been detained for 90 days under 16 MPO without any justification.
The PPP leaders seemed reluctant to directly criticize Gen Pervez Musharraf for the large-scale arrests and manhandling of party workers and MNAs by the Punjab authorities on the arrival of Asif Ali Zardari in Lahore on April 16.
They did not name Gen Musharraf even once when they were criticizing police action against the party activists.
They used the word “government” several times but did not elaborate whether they were talking about the Punjab government or the federal government. Mr Rabbani mentioned the name of Gen Musharraf only once when he was asked a direct question whether the PPP was intentionally avoiding criticism of Gen Musharraf.
When asked if the PPP believed that the Punjab government had launched the operation against the party without backing of Gen Musharraf, Mr Rabbani said the party believed that such an operation could not be launched without approval of the federal government and Gen Musharraf.
When asked about the statement of Asif Zardari that army was a reality and the PPP wanted to continue talks with the establishment, Mr Rabbani said it was within the overall party policy.