PTI protest, gangsterism can’t go on, says Nisar

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan says the PTI’s protest to close public roads and bazaars and access to public service vehicles through force and gangsterism just cannot go on.

“Somebody should agitate against the PTI leadership about their right to protest,” he told The News.

The minister said it was their right to hold public meetings, demonstrations and even sit-ins, but it was not their right to close roads and markets through vandalism.

Chaudhry Nisar said it was the responsibility of every government to ensure free movement.

While on the one hand no restriction is put on any democratic and political activity of any political activity, it is also incumbent upon the government to ensure the rights of common citizens, he added.

He said it was one aspect to be looked at very closely by the government in its policy vis-a-vis the PTI’s December 18 call for countrywide shutter-down and any other subsequent political activity which it is planning.

Meanwhile, the interior minister will meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today (Tuesday) to discuss the government’s strategy for the PTI’s countrywide shutter-down.

It is believed that the same policy would be adopted that was successfully implemented in Islamabad on November 20 when the PTI held its public meeting, which it had portrayed as a do or die gathering.

It had also turned out to be a one-day event like its other protests.
Chaudhry Nisar had personally supervised the chalking out of the policy, which resulted in the peaceful holding and conclusion of the public rally.