• PTI holds protests, rallies countrywide to mark third anniversary of Imran Khan’s arrest
• Party claims one MNA, four MPAs, several workers arrested in Lahore
• Police use teargas, baton-charge Karachi protesters; 10 workers detained
PESHAWAR / LAHORE / KARACHI / ISLAMABAD: The opposition PTI marked the third anniversary of party founder Imran Khan’s arrest on Wednesday with protests and rallies across the country, as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi warned of a march on Islamabad next month, while police action and arrests were reported from Lahore and Karachi.
In a fiery speech at a large rally organised to mark three years of Imran Khan’s imprisonment, CM Afridi warned that the PTI would march towards Islamabad on Sept 27 if the cases of Mr Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were not heard on merit and restrictions on their meetings with lawyers, family members and political leaders were not lifted.
A large number of people from across the province attended the gathering, which was also addressed by PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and PTI provincial president MNA Junaid Akbar Khan.
CM Afridi alleged that Imran Khan would be released “within 30 minutes” if the judiciary were independent and decided his cases on merit.
Without naming any judges or courts, the chief minister said: “You must do justice, otherwise we are coming on Sept 27.”
He said the PTI’s second demand was that doctors, friends, lawyers and political leaders should be allowed to meet Imran Khan in Adiala Jail, claiming that such meetings had been stopped for the last eight months.
He urged the youth in the rally and across the country to come forward for their survival and the security of their future, saying no one from abroad would come to help them.
He said Imran Khan was in jail for the future and democracy of Pakistan and urged PTI workers to accelerate their struggle for his release.
“Imran Khan would have come out of jail immediately if he had signed a deal with the powers that be,” he said, adding that Mr Khan would never surrender.
CM Afridi also took the oath from rally participants that they would not be scared of bullets, tanks and rockets on the occasion of their march on Sept 27.
He also held the federal government and institutions responsible for the resurgence of terrorism in the province, saying the insurgency had engulfed KP.
MNA, MPAs held in Lahore
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