Fawad Chaudhry, senior vice president of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), stated on Sunday that after Peshawar and Multan police declined to hold party members, party officials and workers will demand their arrests in Gujranwala today.
Fawad posted on Twitter that PTI leaders and members would appear for arrest in Gujranwala today after police in Peshawar and Multan declined to do so.
“More than two hundred workers in Lahore and Rawalpindi are currently in various jails and they have refused to submit bail requests.” the former information minister alleged.
The campaign seeks to combat both the “attack on constitutionally-guaranteed fundamental rights” and the “economic meltdown by the incumbent government” according to the PTI’s justification.
On February 22, Lahore initiated the court arrest movement. On the first day of the campaign, the party’s senior leaders—including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Umar, and Azam Swati—along with other party members voluntarily turned themselves in to the Lahore police. Later, some of the others did the same. Later, the movement made it to Peshawar, Rawalpindi, and Multan.
Imran Khan, the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has fiercely criticised the “fascist approach” of the PDM-led government for treating the members and leaders of his party who were jailed during the “Jail Bharo Tehreek” (court arrest drive) like terrorists.
Khan asserted in a tweet that the leaders and members of his party are protesting fascism, the violation of fundamental rights, and the enslavement of the country.
filings for recompense
Many requests for their release were made this week in the Lahore High Court (LHC) notwithstanding the leaders and workers’ “voluntary” incarceration.
At least eight PTI leaders have submitted petitions for their release, including Umar, Omar Sarfaraz Cheema, Senator Swati, Waleed Iqbal, Murad Ras, Jaan Madni, Azam Niazi, and Ahsan Dogar.
“The leaders are not even being provided medicines and food.” The petition also claimed that the leaders were being held against their will. “To defame and hurt them, fake cases can be made against them.”
Insisting that there was no justification for keeping them detained, Chaudhry pleaded with the court to order the police to bring the leaders before the LHC and forgo taking any unlawful action.
In his petition, Zain Qureshi pleaded with the LHC to demand that the PTI vice chairman’s father, who is being held in unlawful custody, be produced by the authorities.
Qureshi stated, “Shah Mahmood was taken into custody yesterday and I am not being informed about his whereabouts,”
