PAT 'revolutionaries' not being allowed to return: BBC Urdu

ISLAMABAD: Worn out by scorching heat and then heavy rain, allegedly hired on meager payments Pakistan Awami Tehreek marchers have become desperate to return to their homes, BBC Urdu reported on Saturday.

According to a BBC Urdu report, the participants of the prolonged sit-in are not being allowed to leave for their homes by the PAT organizers.

Navid, a resident of Bahawalpur and a student of 10th class, whose real name was not given due to security reasons is among the participants of the Inquilab march. He told BBC that the PAT office bearers paid Rs6000 to his family. “PAT local leader Tanvir Abbasi told my family that Navid is going to Islamabad to attend Inquilab March and will return home within three days,” BBC Urdu quoted the boy as saying.

Navid said that almost three hundred youngsters were brought from Bahawalpur and adjacent areas.

He said that the “rented participants” have been divided into battalions of 20 boys each and in-charges of the groups inform the organizers about their attendance on daily basis.

Navid further said the boys injured in clashes with police were also not being allowed to return their homes.

The same boy told BBC Urdu that they had been in Islamabad for 21 days and when they ask their office-bearers for leaving the place for home, they are threatened of dire consequences.

It may be noted PAT chief Tahirul Qadri, in the beginning of the Inquilab march, had said that whoever returned from this march would be killed, however, on the next day he backtracked from the statement, saying he had uttered the words jokingly.

Talking to BBC Urdu, PAT deputy secretary information Umer Riaz Abbasi denied these reports, saying participants of the march were neither paid nor forced to join. He said they were willingly attending the sit-in.