Live updates: PTI’s Lahore power show

After the allocated deadline expired, Lahore police took control of the stage and turned off the microphone and lights. Meanwhile, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan left the stage.

Deputy Commissioner Lahore has warned of ‘stringent action’ if Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) violated the no-objection certificate.

He ordered the jalsa administration to end the public gathering immediately as the allocated 6pm deadline ended. 

PTI rally administration was currently negotiating with the district authorities after the 6pm deadline, allocated in the NOC, has ended.

Ostensibly, the district administration has switched off the lights of the venue. 

 

Addressing the charged participants, PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan— who just arrived at the rally venue — said that his party would not accept anything other than independent judiciary.

Congratulating the PTI Lahore chapter for organising such a ‘huge rally’, Gohar urged the authorities to refrain from creating obstacles for party workers and open the roads leading to Lahore and the venue. 

Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari has claimed that the Imran Khan-founded party has failed to gather larger number of supporters for the Lahore jalsa, saying that the people of Pakistan have rejected the party’s “politics of anarchy”.

Giving a breakdown of attendance at the public gathering, she claimed only 1,500 people from Lahore reached the venue.

“PTI’s Dera Ghazi (DG) Khan leadership arrived with 100 to 150 people, while Sheikh Imtiaz managed to gather only 15 to 20 people. Rai Hassan Nawaz brought only 60 to 70 people,” she said.

Furthermore, the minister claimed 1,500 to 1600 people from Lahore attended the rally; 65 to 85 people from Gujranwala; 63 to 77 people from Faisalabad; 26 to 32 from Sahiwal; and 117 to 155 from Multan. 

PTI’s top leadership, including KP CM Ali Amin Gandapur and party chairman Barrister Gohar, hasn’t reached the venue of the public gathering yet as the 6pm deadline draws nearer.

In the NOC, the deputy commissioner had set 43 conditions for public gathering, including fixing a time limit for the rally from 3pm to 6pm.

It added that no anti-state/anti institution sloganeering and statement be made during the rally and restricted the PTI that “no Afghan flag to be hoisted and no Afghan paid manpower to be brought to Jalsa”.

Blasting the government for creating hurdles, PTI’s Shaukat Ali Yousafzai has asserted that the convoys were carrying machinery to remove any obstacles encountered on the route.

“Frightened Punjab government is blocking the roads leading to the venue despite granting the NOC,” he said, alleging that the regime was raiding the party workers’ house and arresting them.

“Our only demand is to release Imran Khan,” he said, vowing that the former ruling party’s democratic struggle would continue. 

PTI Sindh Vice President, Rizwan Khanzada, said that the ongoing power show in Lahore will be successful as thousands of party workers and supporters were reaching the venue.

He also castigated the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) led Punjab government for creating obstacles in holding the rally, saying that it was PTI’s democratic right to hold jalsa.