KARACHI, Nov 11: Police arrested more than 100 workers, including senior leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party, on Sunday during a protest against emergency rule, which appeared to be a rather soft display of street power with only slight signs of resistance.
Dozens of PPP workers, who started gathering at Regal Chowk to stage a protest march towards the Karachi Press Club in line with the party’s decision of countrywide demonstrations for the restoration of the Constitution, were arrested before the planned rally.
Scattered in groups and chanting slogans against emergency rule, the PPP workers put up little resistance to the police.
The police kept arresting party activists, who continued to gather at Regal Chowk for more than an hour, and shifted them to different police stations. However, light scuffles were witnessed between the party workers and policemen when Senator Raza Rabbani was arrested along with other PPP workers.
The police also arrested PPP Sindh President Qaim Ali Shah, MPA Rafiq Engineer, Dr Ikhtiar Baig, Yousuf Talpur, Afaq Shahid, Najmi Alam, Saeed Ghani and Waqar Mehdi.
Some 50 PPP workers, mostly women activists, managed to reach Fawwara Chowk on Maulana Deen Mohammad Wafai Road only to find the police waiting, which whisked them away in vans to the Artillery Maidan police station as the party workers shouted anti-government slogans and flashed victory signs.
Nargis N.D. Khan, Shamim Bhutto and Farzana Baloch were some of the senior leaders, among several other women activists arrested, on their way to the Press Club at Fawwara Chowk. The almost three-hour episode came to an end at around 5.30pm.
Earlier, the police had cordoned off the whole route the PPP workers had planned to take to reach the Press Club. The roads leading to the Press Club such as Sarwar Shaheed Road and Maulana Deen Mohammad Wafai Road were blocked by parking water tankers and police vans. The traffic plying these roads was diverted to Aiwan-i-Sadr Road.
“The arrests of some 125 people have been confirmed so far,” said a source within the police. “They have been kept in different police stations including Kehkashan, Darakhshan, Gizri, Artillery Maidan, Frere, Defence and Preedy.”
Though no major signs of resistance against arrests were witnessed, the PPP claimed two of its workers were injured due to the police baton-charge.
“We have shifted both our young workers to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre,” said Rashid Rabbani, president of the party’s Karachi chapter, who escaped arrest at Regal Chowk.
“The police manhandled Raza Rabbani and baton-charged our workers, even women, who were peaceful and attempted to stage a peaceful protest,” he added.
He claimed some 250 PPP activists were arrested, including parliamentarians and senior leaders of the party.
Mr Rabbani said the central leadership would decide the future strategy after the fresh events.
A senior official in the Sindh home department, however, said the government was likely to release the PPP workers arrested in Sunday’s protest.
“We have already issued orders for the release of their (PPP) senior leaders,” he added. “Other workers who were arrested along with them are also under consideration to be released later in the night or tomorrow (Monday), but it would be too early to reach any decision,” the source added.
He said the home department had also released some senior members of the legal fraternity and civil society who were arrested last week during different protest demonstrations.
“The lawyers who were not in good health, women and those who did not pose a serious threat to law and order have been released. The number of such persons is more than 100, among whom some were released last night (Saturday) while others would be released gradually,” he said.
The PPP leadership claimed that they were offered release from detention without their workers, which they refused.
“We have decided not to leave the police station until all of our workers are released,” said Dr Ikhtiar Baig, while sitting inside the Defence police station. “We have conveyed this message to the senior officials and now they have to decide their line of action.”
FIRs registered
The Sindh police late on Sunday registered two FIRs against several workers of the Pakistan People’s Party, including senior leaders, for protesting against the emergency, which is a violation of Section 144.
A senior official said two different FIRs had been lodged under the same section at the Artillery Maidan and Preedy police stations, which contained the names of some leaders, including Dr Mirza Ikhtiar Baig, an industrialist and senior party member.
“The FIRs have been lodged against some 37 persons under Section 188 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC),” said Captain (r) Tahir Naveed Khan, SP Saddar Town. He declined to give the details of the FIRs, saying a formal process had been initiated which would define the legal procedure. Section 188, the violation of which is considered a non-bailable offence, charges disobedience to (an) order duly promulgated by a public servant.
The Sindh government banned public meetings and gatherings under Section 144 for 30 days after the imposition of emergency.
Though the authorities considered the PPP’s protest earlier in the day as a serious violation of the law, the party leadership, however, saw it as part of the victimization campaign initiated by the Sindh chief minister, who, according to them, has been targeting the PPP mainly for the last one month, ever since party chairperson Benazir Bhutto announced her return to the country from exile.“I am the prime target of the Sindh CM, as I was very much involved in planning our chairperson’s welcome programme,” said Dr Baig. “But it’s not going to demoralize us, as the whole leadership of my party is behind me in this situation.”
Detention condemned
Meanwhile Sherry Rehman, the PPP’s central information secretary, has condemned the “detention and inhuman treatment of the party’s senior leaders and workers.” She said that a week after the imposition of “martial law, the regime’s human rights violations have brought shame and disgrace to the nation. Through indiscriminate detentions, the regime wants to send a message to the independent civilian forces that any anti-regime movement on their part will be met with tougher action.”
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