Peshawar: The Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Imran Khan, plans to carry on with the party’s “Azadi March” despite the Pakistan government’s decision earlier on Tuesday to stop the long march towards Islamabad, Geo News reported.
Khan, while addressing a press conference in Peshawar, said he will lead the “biggest procession in Pakistan’s history” on Wednesday.
The PTI chairman’s speech comes after a countrywide police crackdown against members and leaders of the PTI. A policeman also lost his life in one of the raids after which the government said it would not allow the PTI to go ahead with its long march scheduled for Wednesday.
Criticising the PML-N-led government, Khan said that he has been seeing the Sharif family adopting the same tactics that military dictators did since 1985.
“They only remember democracy as soon as they leave power,” he said, asking how many times these parties have taken to the streets throughout the PTI government’s term.
The former Prime Minister then asked if the PTI government made any arrests when PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and JUI-F Cheif Maulana Fazlur Rehman marched towards Islamabad, Geo News reported.
Calling out to the judiciary of Pakistan, the PTI leader said that the courts’ reputation would be tarnished if it permitted what was happening in the country and its silence would “prove that there is no democracy in the country”.
“We are noting the names of each and every official and bureaucrat. Our message to the bureaucracy is that action will be taken against them if they follow illegal orders,” he said, Geo News reported.
The PTI chairman asked his supporters to “break the chains of fear” while citing the example of how the Afghans fought foreign powers.
Khan said that the government could not put a sea of people, who are willing to march to Islamabad in his support, in jail.
(IANS)
