KARACHI: Four months after their election, some 1,400 chairmen, vice chairmen and councillors belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party, Jamaat-i-Islami, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and other parties took oath in ceremonies held in different parts of the metropolis on Monday.

A few members of the opposition PTI were arrested either before or after the oath-taking ceremony. However, police released them within a few hours.

A total of 1,460 persons were elected in the Jan 15 local government elections and around 60 elected representatives didn’t turn up on Monday to take oath and majority of them were associated with the PTI.

The deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners in all seven districts of Karachi division administered the oath in ceremonies held in different areas of the respective districts.

The PTI said that some of those who didn’t take oath were under jail custody after they were arrested following the May 9 violence. Others, it said, didn’t turn up due to fear of arrest.

“Even today [Monday], our elected members were arrested from inside the oath-taking ceremony venue in violation of court orders,” said the general secretary of the PTI’s Karachi chapter Arsalan Taj Ghumman.

“The police defied all rules and unfortunately no one is taking notice including the Election Commission of Pakistan and the judiciary. This is all being done to harass and pressurise our elected members,” he said.

Meanwhile, a police official confirmed that total four elected members of the PTI were taken into custody before the oath-taking ceremonies in different districts. He said all of them were released a couple of hours later.

However, he didn’t mention the reason behind their arrests.

The JI suspected that the Sindh government of PPP was abusing its powers only to reduce the numbers of its votes after the PTI announced its support for the JI candidate in the mayoral election.

“We strongly condemn the Sindh government for using fascist tactics to keep PTI representatives away from oath-taking ceremonies to reduce our numbers for the election of city mayor,” said JI Karachi chief Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman.

Hafiz Naeem was talking to reporters outside The Karachi Medical and Dental College (KMDC) where he took oath as a UC chairman.

“The electoral process of mayor has already been hijacked. The PPP has turned the whole thing to impose feudalism instead of a democratic system. Such tactics will not be tolerated and the conspiracy against the mandate of Karachiites will be foiled,” he said.

“This behaviour confirms the history of the PPP. This ruling party is doing the same when it had not accepted the mandate of people in 1970 at the cost of the country’s disintegration,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2023