PTI stages countrywide protests against election ‘rigging' amid police action in Punjab

• Police arrest PTI lawmakers in Faisalabad.
• Nation voted PTI to free Imran Khan: Haleem Adil.
• PTI held massive protest demonstrations in KP.
  

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday staged countrywide protests against alleged rigging in general as well as by-elections and for the release of its incarcerated founder Imran Khan amid reports of police crackdown on the party’s activists in parts of Punjab.

According to Khan-led party, the Punjab police have arrested dozens of PTI workers and conducted raids at their houses and offices to thwart their protest. 

The PTI, however, staged protest rallies in Shahdara, Garden Town and other areas of Lahore.

During an interaction with journalists in Islamabad, PTI Chairman Gohar Ali Khan alleged that their sound system and chairs were picked up on the eve of his party’s 28th Foundation Day.

“Rigging was committed everywhere [every polling station] to defeat the PTI,” he added.

In Faisalabad, the police stopped the PTI protest rally on Samandari Road and arrested MNA Changez Khan Kakar, MPA Sheikh Shahid Javed and others.            

Taking to X, formerly known as Twitter, PTI leader Hammad Azhar alleged that the Lahore police have taken at least 12 of his workers, including a 12-year-old boy, into custody from his constituency.

In a social media post shared on the official X handle of the PTI, the former ruling party lambasted the Punjab police chief and Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz for arresting the 12-year-old.      

The former ruling party believed that the incumbent rulers stole their electoral mandate in the elections and the results were changed in Form 47s to benefit the PML-N and the PPP.

"The incumbent government at the Centre has been formed after stealing PTI’s 180 seats," Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur had alleged.

In a bid to reclaim their “stolen mandate” the Khan-founded party, apparently, mounting pressure on the PML-N-regime as the six-party opposition alliance launched its protest drive against the government with a rally in Baloshitan's Pishin where PTI leader Omar Ayub vowed to reclaim their rights through the "Tehreek Tahafuz Ayin".

Meanwhile, the former ruling party staged massive protests and sit-ins across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where the PTI is in power. In DI Khan, a large number of PTI workers held a protest demonstration outside the press club. The PTI hold huge rallies in Peshawar, Mardan, Swabi and other cities of the province.   

In Karachi, the PTI took out a protest rally on Rashid Minhas Road. PTI Sindh chapter President Haleem Adil Sheikh was leading the rally. Addressing the rally at Char Minar Chowrangi, Sheikh said: “The nation   

“The nation voted [us] to free PTI founder. Our protest is for the release of Kaptan and against the mandate theft,” he added.

Addressing a press conference in the port city, PTI leader Omar Ayub Khan lashed out at the Punjab IG for its “cruelties” against his party workers.

He said that former Punjab CM Mohsin Raza Naqvi had victimised the PTI in the past but now Punjab IG is doing the same. Ayub said that they were staging protests for the release of the PTI founder and other incarcerated leaders and women activists of the former ruling party.

In addition to this, the PTI recorded their protest in Quetta, where a large number of PTI workers and leaders took out a rally.