PTI workers thrash police officials in Attock

• Fazal Shakoor first takes police officials to a building.
• Labour minister protects cops from party activists.
• Officials handed over to Punjab Police, says Gandapur.

ISLAMABAD: Enraged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) workers, accompanying Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minsiter Ali Amin Gandapur’s convoy, subjected three police officials to torture on Peshawar-Islamabad motorway in Attock.

The aforementioned Punjab police officials, who got wounded in the incident, were posted on a bridge passing over River Haro. Upon hearing the policemen being subjected to torture by party supporters, KP Labour Minister Fazal Shakoor rushed to the site and rescued the cops.

The minister first took them to a building from where they were moved out through a ladder to protect them from the PTI supporters’ wrath.

Shakoor said the party activists were adamant that the officials should be handed over to them, but he ensured that they were protected.

While announcing to call off the protest and return to KP, CM Gandapur had mentioned in his speech on Saturday that his party workers had caught policemen but they handed them over to Punjab Police with respect.

After clashes between law enforcement officials and political party workers, the PTI had postponed its protest in Rawalpindi on Saturday.

Commenting on the clash, the KP CM on Sunday stated that his party would respond to every bullet, tear gas shell, and baton strike against its supporters.

The firebrand PTI leader claimed bullets were fired on three of their workers and whereabouts of one of them could not be traced.

"More than 50 PTI workers have been injured in shelling as shells and bullets were fired every three kilometres on us,” he said.

Gandapur said this after returning to Peshawar as the PTI protest in Rawalpindi was "called off" amid violent clashes between protesters and riot police near Liaquat Bagh.

The Gandapur-led convoy remained stuck at the interchange for several hours due to closure of roads as the authorities had placed containers at Burhan Interchange in an attempt to thwart PTI’s protest.

Addressing the participants, the KP chief executive directed them to return to Peshawar and castigated the government for not granting PTI its “constitutional right”.

Vowing to come back with “all resources”, he regretted that the police fired teargas and rubber bullets at the protesters.

On the other hand, Gandapur said, many police officials were caught by the party activists but he rescued them.

“They [police] have set a precedent of firing bullets […] We also have guns,” he stated.

Meanwhile, he saluted the residents of KP and Rawalpindi Division over their support for the former ruling party.