After skipping the PTI’s protest in Islamabad, KPK Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur went back to Mansehra on Wednesday to let party members know that the “sit-in is still going on.”
The PTI called off its high-stakes protest sit-in “for the time being” after security officers and protesters fought in the city’s Red Zone early Wednesday. The party leadership had to leave.
Late Tuesday night, cops and security guards fired tear gas at PTI supporters who were trying to get to the fortified D-Chowk.
Chief Minister of KPK Ali Amin Gandapur and Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi told the protesters “to go home, have dinner, and come back tomorrow” before the PTI left late at night.
CM Gandapur told the press in Mansehra in the afternoon that the sit-in would go on until Imran told them to stop.
“People have died in this protest. We must pray for them,” the chief minister said. He expressed his frustration at the PTI’s constant denial of protest permits, saying, “We have been the target of violence.”
We wanted protests to be calm. Imran Khan told us to be quiet when we get to D-Chowk and stop there.
She said, “[Imran] Khan Sahib gave this call and said this protest will go on until I call it off.”
“It’s not necessary that every sit-in has people,” the chief minister said.
They crushed our party and took away our authority. Gandapur said of Imran and Bushra, “Our leader is in jail, and our leader’s wife was thrown in jail.” After nine months, they released Bushra on bail.
Bushra Bibi, CM Gandapur, and National Assembly Opposition Leader Omar Ayub Khan were at the “emergency” news conference at 11 a.m. When Gandapur and Ayub spoke to party workers, the former first lady wasn’t there.
Taimur Saleem Swati, senior vice president of the PTI in Hazara. He said that the news conference would take place at the home of KP Speaker Babar Saleem Swati.
Early Wednesday morning, the party’s official X account said, “Because the government is cruel and there is a plan to turn the capital into an abattoir for unarmed civilians. We are ending the peaceful protest.”
It also said that the plan will be based on “analyses of state brutality” done by the party’s political and core groups. In light of the direction of their leader, Imran Khan, who is currently in jail.
The spokesperson for the party spoke out against “killing” and “terror and brutality against peaceful protesters in the name of an operation.”
The party wants Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi to investigate the “brutal murder of martyred [party] workers” and bring charges against the prime minister, the interior minister, the Islamabad police commander, and the Punjab police commander for “attempt to murder.”
PTI Mohammad Asim, the president of Peshawar, told Reuters, “We will come up with a new plan later after we have had a chance to talk about it.” He said that Bibi and Gandapur got back to KP from Islamabad “safely.”
According to AFP, over the weekend, about 10,000 protesters entered the city to fight 20,000 security officers despite it being under lockdown.
While the barriers burnt all night, police used sticks and slingshots to fire tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters.
Early on Wednesday, AFP reported that security guards wearing riot gear led protesters from the main road to Islamabad’s government area and then took them away by bus. Security guards wearing riot gear were in charge.
Mohsin Naqvi, the minister of interior, said that they “bravely pushed back the protesters.”
People who worked with Reuters saw no protesters in the heavily guarded Red Zone on Wednesday morning, but Bushra Bibi’s half-burnt truck was still there.
After PTI followers stormed the capital and demanded Bushra Bibi’s release on November 27, 2024. Women and children picked through his burning truck to find recyclables.
On Tuesday, a fight between PTI fans and security police using tear gas and rubber bullets resulted in two deaths and over 60 injuries in the federal capital.
Pims reported the deaths of two civilians and the injuries of 60 people, including security staff. Ten police officers and three injured officers proceeded to the Polyclinic.
Officials and hospital sources said that six people died during the three days of protests. Three Rangers officials and a police officer died when their car crashed.
Restored routes and data services
Dawn.com said that after four days, internet services were back up and running in Red Zone, Bani Gala, and Rawalpindi.
Major General Hafeezur Rehman, who is the chairman of the PTA and is now retired, told Dawn.com that the internet was “restored at 7 am.”
The Associated Press of Pakistan says that business resumed in the federal city while the district government cleaned up.
APP said that Murree Road, which had been closed for three days because of protests, was being cleaned up while barrels. That were blocking city streets were taken away.
The news reported that all motorways, including the Islamabad-Lahore, were open. Dawn.com reported the removal of barrels from the Islamabad-Rawalpindi road.
The reporter stated that bus stops and public transport have resumed.
PTI says that 8 marchers were shot and killed.
In a statement about their protest suspension. They said that “dozens” of PTI workers were shot and killed directly, and eight of them were named.
PTI said it was “not a military or armed party, and it does not think it is willing to have its own people killed by state killers.”
They went through “all difficulties, obstacles, violence, and savage barbarism” to get to D-Chowk. But they “would not let the bodies of its citizens pile up.”
“PTI has a long history of peaceful political struggle and has been blocking the government plan to pile up bodies since November 24,” the press release said.
The party named three protests in 2022 and four in 2023, saying that since it was removed in 2022. It had “failed each of the government’s attempts to drench every peaceful protest in blood.”
The PTI called off the meeting and promised to “keep struggling” for “haqeeqi azadi,” or real freedom.
The PTI thanked the people from Pakistan and other countries who came to the gathering in Islamabad. And protested around the world. It praised the people of Islamabad and Rawalpindi for letting party convoys stay in their cities.
The PTI posted a picture of a “list of injured persons in Federal Government Polyclinic, Islamabad” “during political protest” on November 26. The picture showed 26 people who had been “gunshot” and two deaths.
Two men, ages 20 and 24, died. Most of the victims were 19–50-year-old KP residents. Some of them were from the central capital.
PTI said the story was a “partial list of those admitted to a single hospital in Islamabad.”
In a different post today, the PTI said, “There has been a massacre in Pakistan by security forces.”
It said that armed security staff “violently attacked peaceful PTI protesters in Islamabad by firing live rounds to kill as many people as possible.” It compared the fights last night to those in East Pakistan in 1971.
The post said, “The rulers have learned nothing from history and are ready to destroy the country to keep their illegal power.” The interior minister’s threat to kill and subsequent claim of “victory” over hundreds of killed innocent people. Which demonstrates the brutality of the regime.
The PTI asked the rest of the world to rebuke the “atrocity and the erosion of democracy and humanity in Pakistan” and do something about it.
Reporter Tarar doesn’t agree that the government should stop protesting.
The PTI said that police shot protesters, but Attaullah Tarar, the information minister, denied this.
State-run Tarar informed Radio Pakistan that there were no shots or deaths among the PTI protesters.
Attaullah Tarar talks to the media in Islamabad.
While he was in Islamabad overnight, he reported seeing scattered protesters at D-Chowk and Jinnah Avenue. But the government did not fire any shots.
The minister stated that the abandoned cars of PTI protesters caused damage to state property. Attaullah asserted that CM Gandapur and Bushra fled after making “big claims.”
He told the media that PTI convoys were trying to get away by “crashing their own vehicles into each other.” He said that marchers threw away their clothes and shoes.
The minister said that the “documents that got burnt in the container”. They will be used by the PTI will be examined by a forensics team. Which suggests that they had a plan.
“The interior minister closely monitored the situation,”. Tarar stated that we will address them at the appropriate moment, emphasizing the government’s desire to prevent any fatalities.
According to APP, Tarar called the protest “a missed call” in response to Imran’s usage of the phrase “final call.”
In a show from yesterday, Naqvi said again, “No concessions and no talks under any circumstances” with the PTI.
“Political introspection” is what HRCP suggests.
In a time of political unrest, the HRCP asked the government and the PTI to “engage in a purposeful political dialogue” and “political introspection.”
HRCP said that the government and the opposition party. The PTI, needs to start serious political talk right away in parliament and between parties.
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