Talking exclusively to Daily Times, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Punjab General Secretary Chaudhry Manzoor said that it is highly condemnable and equally disgraceful to arrest Ammar Ali Jan from his residence at night.
“It’s not a solution to arrest people instead of listening to their grievances and reservations. He is a law-abiding citizen and an academician but the way he was arrested on Friday night is immoral and unethical,” he said. “Our sympathies are with his father Dr Javaid Jan who is a revolutionary poet associated with the PPP,” he added.
He was of the opinion that it wasn’t a crime to express solidarity with the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) and Ammar Ali Jan was holding a peaceful demonstration to show solidarity with the PTM.
Talking about the detention of journalist Rizwan Razi, PPP’s leader said that the state is suppressing the basic fundamental rights of the citizen as it isn’t a crime to have a different point of view. It was earlier claimed that Rizwan Razi was abducted by some unidentified persons but everyone knows who these unidentified persons are, PPP Punjab General Secretary Chaudhry Manzoor said while adding that the PPP was standing with the family of the noted journalist in this time of grief. “The PPP has a long history of resistance against the forces of cruelty and injustice and we’ll keep continue our resistance against such forces,” he concluded.
Haqooq-e-Khalq Movement and Progressive Students Alliance member Haider Butt, who was the eye-witness of the incident of Ammar Jan said while also talking exclusively to Daily Times that a police van and a private vehicle along with two motorbikes reached Ammar’s house at around 4am. There were police officials and some in plain clothes who entered his house without any arrest warrant and misbehaved with both Ammar and his wife.
Published in Daily Times, February 10th 2019.
