Former PM Imran’s party kicks off peaceful ‘Jail Bharo Tehrik’ from Lahore
Senior PTI leaders wave victory sign inside a police van in Lahore on Wednesday. Twitter photo
Tariq Butt, Correspondent
Former prime minister and Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan on Wednesday officially announced the beginning of the party's Jail Bharo Tehrik – court arrest movement — in an effort to register its protest against the "attack" on fundamental rights and the economic "meltdown" brought on by the incumbent government.
The peaceful movement kicked off from Lahore's Mall road. Senior PTI leaders and workers voluntarily surrendered themselves to the police. Police said they have not arrested anybody, and the PTI leaders, seeing the prisoners’ van, themselves forcibly got into it.
However, police are considering detaining some PTI leaders and workers on the charge of disturbing public order. PTI leaders including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Azam Swati, Asad Umar, Umar Sarfraz Cheem and some others voluntarily got into the prisoners’ van. Some PTI workers climbed on the top of the van and took selfies. They smashed the windscreen of the van.
To court arrest, the PTI leaders and workers gathered at the Charing Cross on the Mall Road Lahore. However, police did not intervene and did not arrest anybody on their own.
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PTI Chairman Imran encouraged his supporters and party leaders to participate with full strength in the court arrest movement, which he said was "a non-violent protest" against the attack on the party’s fundamental rights and "economic meltdown.”
"Today, we start our Jail Bharo campaign for real freedom for two main reasons. One, it is a peaceful, nonviolent protest against the attack on our constitutionally-guaranteed fundamental rights," Imran wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
"Two, it is against the economic meltdown brought on by a cabal of crooks who have money laundered billions in looted wealth and gotten NROs [amnesties] for themselves while crushing the people, especially the poor and middle class, under the burden of spiralling inflation & rising unemployment," he added.
Separately, to refresh the party workers' zeal for the court arrest movement, Imran released a video message, urging them to "fill up prisons and shatter the idols of fear." He called on all Pakistanis to join the movement to achieve real freedom.
Imran had announced the court arrest movement earlier this month - in the wake of the coalition government's spree of arrests of key PTI leaders - after apparently running out of options to press the Pakistan Democratic Movement-led government to stop it from "political victimisation.”
Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, meanwhile, had said that the PTI's court arrest drive was aimed at creating political instability, and a law and order situation in the country.
Chairing a meeting on law and order, he had said the PTI wanted to get media attention by creating drama. "The miscreants should be exposed by presenting evidence of their wrongdoings before the masses," he had added.
It was decided that the miscreants would be arrested and law and order would be ensured in the country at all costs. The arrest of women and poor workers would be avoided, it was decided.
Sanaullah said the record of miscreants would be maintained and their activities would be mentioned in their character certificates.
The PTI's plan is to render their arrests as part of the phase wise court arrest drive in protest against what they call, ouster of their government from power and deliberate attempts to now have elections in the country at the federal and the provincial level by the current ruling coalition government under Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
