• Pindi police shift detained party leaders, workers to prisons in Shahpur and Hafizabad
• Fawad says PTI to launch ‘nationwide campaign to save’ institution if ‘blackmail’ continues

LAHORE / RAWALPINDI: After holding a photo session inside prison vans and raising slogans against the government, leaders and supporters of the PTI in Multan dispersed and went back home without courting arrest.

After demonstrations in Lahore, Peshawar, and Rawalpindi, the ‘Jail Bharo Tehreek’ announced by PTI chief Imran Khan earlier this week was launched in the southern part of Punjab on the fourth day of the movement.

Some leaders and workers gathered at Nawan Sheher Chowk to ‘court arrest’ but they left after sloganeering even though the police had brought three prison vans for the volunteers. However, the PTI supporters used the opportunity only to take photos inside these vans.

A PTI leader, Amir Dogar, claimed the police had parked vans a kilometre from the site of the protest. He said they were willing to court arrest and “may come again in a day or two if the PTI chief asked them to turn themselves in”.

Meanwhile, PTI leaders and workers who were taken into custody by the Rawalpindi police on Friday were moved to district jails in Shahpur and Hafizabad.

Zulfi Bukhari, Sadaqat Abbasi, Fayazul Hassan Chohan, Ijaz Khan Jazi, Latafat Abbasi, and Chaudhry Sajid were sent to Shahpur in a prison van on Friday after midnight, whereas other supporters, including Raja Khurram Zaman, were shifted to the district jail in Hafizabad amid tight security.

‘Campaign to save judiciary’

Speaking to media persons in Lahore after a hearing at the high court, PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry said that the Supreme Court was the guardian of the Constitution as he vowed to launch a nationwide campaign to “save” the institution in the case the criticism against judges continued.

In a reference to recent criticism of the judiciary by the PML-N, the PTI senior vice president claimed that a political party, “which had been involved in a physical attack on the apex institution, is maligning it yet again for political reasons”. The ruling party must realise that it was weakening the state by “berating national institutions”. “Only strong institutions can ensure the survival of the state,” Mr Chaudhry said, adding that if this “blackmail” continued, the PTI would launch a “nationwide campaign to save them”.

Speaking about the court arrest movement, he said that over 200 workers of the party “have been incarcerated and the leadership has already rej­ec­ted the offer to release them”. “We want the judiciary to take note of their rights as political prisoners,” he added.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2023