PTI's Gohar, Marwat among others held after crackdown on violators of public rally law

• Police crackdown begins after PTI's Islamabad rally.
• Red Zone's routes sealed amid heavy deployment of police.
• PTI leader Shoaib Shaheen arrested from residence: sources.
  

ISLAMABAD: Police on Monday arrested PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Khan and lawmaker Sher Afzal Marwat outside Parliament House, with more arrests expected for allegedly violating the newly enacted public gathering law during the party’s Sunday power show in the capital.

The Islamabad police said that PTI leaders Omar Ayub Khan and Zartaj Gul Wazir would also be taken into custody.

Marwat resisted the arrest and asked the police to show arrest warrant.

Heavy contingents of police were deployed outside the parliament while all entry and exit routes to the Red Zone were also closed from D-Chowk, Nadra Chowk, Serena, and Marriott, except for Margala Road.

However, PTI MNA Ali Muhammad Khan was not taken into custody by the police when he departed from the parliament.

Marwat was arrested for violating regulations devised under a new law —Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, sources told Geo News, adding that the PTI lawmaker was accused of clashing with police personnel a day earlier.

The sources claimed that all the PTI lawmakers, including Zain Qureshi, Sheikh Waqas Akram, Naseem-ur-Rehman and Zubair Khan have been arrested from the Parliament House.

The sources privy to the matter claimed that CM Gandapur, however, left for Peshawar from Islamabad.   

Islamabad police were expected to launch a crackdown against the former ruling party’s Punjab leaders who attended yesterday’s power show, according to sources.

It emerged that Islamabad police formally informed the Punjab top officials regarding the actions.

In a separate action, Shoaib Shaheen was also arrested from his residence.

Police filed cases against several leaders of the Imran-founded party under newly-enacted Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, at Noon Village and Sangjani police stations.

At least 28 local leaders including Seemabia Tahir and Raja Basharat were also nominated in the cases.

The first information report (FIR) stated that charged PTI workers attacked police teams with batons and pelted them with stones when officers tried to stop them from violating the Islamabad rally's route.

According to the FIR, police deployed for security resorted to tear gas shelling and baton charging the party activists, arresting 17 of them from the scene.

The PTI staged its much-hyped power show in Islamabad with party workers and police clashing on Chungi No 26, on the outskirts of the capital.

The federal capital police claimed that the PTI supporters’ insistence to use the route set for the general public led to clash with the law enforcers.

'CM Gandapur not in contact since 6pm'

Amid ongoing crackdown against the PTI leaders, Advisor to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister on Information Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif said that the provincial chief executive was not in contact since 6pm.

Speaking to Geo News programme "Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath", the KP CM spokesperson said that Gandapur told him over phone at 3pm that he was going to Islamabad for a meeting.

"Since then, Gandapur's phone has been off and his close staff’s contact numbers are also unreachable since 6pm," he added.

"Has anyone witnessed a precedent of arresting an elected chief minister," he questioned.

The CM's aide asked authorities to file a case against Gandapur if he had done anything wrong.

Commenting over the arrests of the PTI leaders, Saif said that such moves could not crush the former ruling party except for denting the democracy in the country.

"Senior parliamentarians were arrested like criminals. We will not compromise and continue our struggle," he added.

Slamming the government, the politico said that there was no solid reason to begin a crackdown on the basis of Gandapur's speech during the Islamabad rally.

He was of the view that the KP CM delivered an "emotional speech" as the current rulers seized power via "illegal means".

CM Gandapur, in his speech yesterday, gave a two-week ultimatum to the coalition government to release the party founder Imran Khan besides pledging to expand the anti-government movement to Punjab.

"If the founder of PTI is not legally released within one to two weeks, we will have him freed ourselves," the chief minister had said.

Bill to regulate public gatherings

The Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, had sailed through the Senate and the National Assembly amid the opposition protests a few days ahead of the Imran-founded party's Islamabad rally which increased the powers of the federal capital's local authorities to control public gatherings.

President Asif Ali Zardari signed the bill into law just a day before the PTI’s rally.

The new bill empowers the district magistrate to regulate and ban public assemblies in the federal capital, proposing a punishment of up to three years or/and an unspecified fine to the members of an "unlawful assembly".

It also proposed that repeat offenders will be liable to imprisonment for a term that may extend to 10 years.

The bill says the ban on assembly under the proposed law would remain in force for the duration specified by the district magistrate, which may be extended if the conditions necessitating the ban persist.

“An officer-in-charge of a police station, on the instruction of the district magistrate, may command any assembly likely to disturb the public peace to disperse. It shall then be the duty of the members of such an assembly to comply and disperse accordingly,” it reads.