The Lahore police has booked over 2,000 political workers including Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif for participating in a rally of the joint opposition held here at Mall Road on Thursday to mark the first anniversary of the July 25 elections.
An FIR was launched at the Civil Lines Police Station against PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif and PPP Punjab President Qamar Zaman Kaira along with a number of MPAs and MNAs of the PML-N for violating ‘The Punjab Sound Systems Act, 2015’ and ‘The Punjab Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance, 1960’. The police has also claimed in the FIR that the participants delivered provocative speeches against the government and also indulged in scuffles with the police officials present there.
Our four dozens MPAs, MNAs and former ministers of the PML-N were named in the FIR, while around 1,900 unidentified were also booked for participating in the rally. Prominent among those who were named in the FIR include MNAs Waheed Alam, Rana Mubashar, Ch Barjees Tahir, Khurram Dastagir, Sheikh Rohail Asghar, Malik Riaz and MPAs Rana Iqbal, Samiullah Khan, Uzma Bukhari, Tariq Masih Gill, Mian Marghoob, Bilal Yasin, Pir Ashraf Rasool, Mian Abdur Rauf, Mian Mujtaba, former mayor Lahore Col (r) Mubashar and former minister Javed Hashmi.
On Thursday, a rally was carried out jointly by the PML-N, PPP, ANP and JUI-F against the incumbent government to mark the first anniversary of last general elections as ‘black day’, as, according to the opposition, the mandate of the people was stolen on this day to bring Imran Khan into the government.
A meeting of the PML-N chaired by party’s secretary general Ahsan Iqbal was held in Model Town on Friday to review the post-rally situation. Talking to media after the meeting, Ahsan Iqbal said the PTI held over 140 rallies during the PML-N’s tenure “but we didn’t create hindrances in their events.” “The Punjab government tried its best to stop our workers for participating in the rally in Lahore … there was also severe censorship on media to telecast our political activities,” he said, adding that the PML-N workers were arrested even before the rally.
Ahsan Iqbal thanked the people for making the ‘black day’ successful as, he said, the participation of a huge number of people has proved that the incumbent government has come through a fake mandate. He was of the view that the foreign investment in the country has decreased by 50 percent while the exports have come down by Rs 5 billion. He said over one million people got unemployed in last 11 months. “The cases against PML-N are politically motivated and the NAB has in fact become the ‘Niazi Accountability Bureau’,” he added.
While condemning the FIR launched against the workers of PML-N and PPP, MPA Malik Zaheer Iqbal has submitted a resolution in the Punjab Assembly. According to Uzma Bukhari, the ‘thanksgiving day’ of a ‘fake government’ was rejected by the masses and the whole nation marked the ‘black day’ against the so-called democratic government. “If there were no people in the rally of Lahore then against whom the FIR was launched,” she asked. “Both the provincial and federal governments used resources to fail the rally by arresting our workers but still the people have given their verdict against this government by coming in large numbers,” she added.
