After fleeing from the site of the PTI’s Islamabad protest, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur on Wednesday resurfaced in Mansehra, where he assured his party workers that the “sit-in is still ongoing”.
The PTI, in the early hours of Wednesday, announced that it was calling off its high-stakes Islamabad protest sit-in “for the time being”, following a day of clashes between security forces and protesters in the city’s Red Zone ended in the party leadership’s hasty retreat.
As PTI supporters inched towards the heavily barricaded D-Chowk late on Tuesday, the police and security forces employed intense teargas shelling to disperse the protesters.
The late-night retreat by the PTI leadership, including Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, came after the latter was heard telling the protesters “to go home, have dinner and return tomorrow”.
Addressing a press conference in the afternoon in Mansehra, CM Gandapur said, “The sit-in is ongoing.”
Noting that the call was given on Imran’s order, the chief minister remarked, “It is not necessary that every sit-in has people in it.”
“We have been targets of violence,” he lamented.
Bushra Bibi, CM Gandapur and National Assembly Opposition Leader Omar Ayub Khan were set to address an “emergency” press conference at 11am today. However, when Gandapur and Ayub finally addressed his party workers, the former first lady was not seen alongside them.
According to an earlier statement byTaimur Saleem Swati, senior vice president of PTI’s Hazara chapter, the press conference was to be held at the residence of KP Speaker Babar Saleem Swati.
In the early hours of Wednesday, a press release shared by the party on its official X account read: “In view of the government’s brutality and the government’s plan to turn the capital into a slaughterhouse for unarmed citizens, [we] announce the suspension of the peaceful protest for the time being.”
It added that future plan of action would be announced “in light of the directions” of its incarcerated founder Imran Khan after the party’s political and core committees presented their “analyses of the state brutality” to him.
The statement, issued by the party spokesperson, condemned the alleged “killing” and “terror and brutality against peaceful protesters in the name of an operation”.
The party appealed to Chief Justice of Pakistan Yahya Afridi to take suo motu notice of the alleged “brutal murder of martyred [party] workers” and order legal action against the prime minister and interior minister as well as Islamabad and Punjab police chiefs for “attempt to murder”.
“We will chalk out the new strategy later after proper consultation, Mohammad Asim, PTI’s Peshawar president, told Reuters. He said that Bushra Bibi as well as CM Gandapur had returned “safely” to KP from Islamabad.
More than 10,000 protesters surged into the city on the weekend, defying a ban on public gatherings and a lockdown to skirmish with 20,000 security forces enlisted to turn them back, AFP reported.
Overnight, security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters wielding sticks and slingshots, as roadblocks were set ablaze.
By early Wednesday, AFP staff saw the main thoroughfare towards Islamabad’s government enclave cleared of crowds, and security forces in riot gear being bussed away from the area.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in a statement they had “bravely repulsed the protesters”.
On Wednesday morning, the heavily fortified Red Zone was empty of protesters but several of their vehicles were left behind, including the remains of a truck from which Bushra Bibi had been leading the protests that appeared charred by flames, according to Reuters witnesses.
As PTI supporters faced off with security personnel across the federal capital on Tuesday, with both sides using tear gas and rubber bullets, at least two were killed and over 60 were injured during clashes.
The Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) confirmed the death of two civilians and injuries to around 60 persons, including security personnel. At least three injured policemen and 10 civilians were also shifted to Polyclinic for treatment.
A total of six lives were lost in the three days of protests, which included a policeman and three Rangers officials who perished in a vehicular accident, officials and hospital sources said.
Data services restored, routes reopened
Meanwhile, data services, after remaining suspended for four days, were restored in various areas of Islamabad — including Red Zone and Bani Gala — as well as Rawalpindi, Dawn.com correspondents reported.
The internet services were “restored at 7am”, PTA Chairman (retired) Major General Hafeezur Rehman confirmed to Dawn.com.
According to the Associated Press of Pakistan, business activities were resuming in the federal capital, with the district administration’s cleanup efforts underway.
While containers blocking various roads in the city had been removed, APP said, the removal of containers from Murree Road, which was sealed off for three days due to the protests, was in progress.
All motorways were reopened for traffic, including routes between Islamabad and Lahore, the report noted A Dawn.com correspondent also confirmed that containers were being removed from the road connecting Islamabad to Rawalpindi.
Public transport and bus stations had been reopened as well, the correspondent added.
PTI claims at least 8 dead in shooting at protesters
In its press release, which announced the suspension of its protest, the PTI claimed that “dozens” of its workers were shot at directly and killed, of which it said it had the details of eight and listed their purported names.
The PTI said it was “not a military or armed party and neither does it consider itself to be willing to have its citizens slaughtered by state murderers”.
Highlighting that its supporters cleared “all difficulties, obstacles, violence, savage barbarism” to reach D-Chowk but “would not allow the bodies of its citizens to pile up”.
According to the press release, the PTI had a “long history peaceful political struggle and kept blocking the way of the government plan to pile up bodies since November 24”.
The party also stated the dates of previous protests since its 2022 ouster where it said it “failed each of the government’s attempts to drench every peaceful protest in blood” — three from 2022 and four from 2023.
While calling off the protest, the PTI also reaffirmed its intention to “keep struggling” for “haqeeqi azadi” (actual freedom).
The PTI paid tribute to citizens and its workers for coming to Islamabad from all across the country for the protest, as well as overseas Pakistanis who heeded its call for global protests. It further said it was immensely grateful to the residents of Islamabad and Rawalpindi for the hospitality they offered to the party convoys.
The PTI also shared a photo of a “list of injured persons in Federal Government Polyclinic, Islamabad” on November 26 “during political protest”, which listed the details of 26 people with “gunshot” wounds and two others who succumbed to their injuries.
The two men who died were aged 20 and 24 years, according to the list, while those injured were aged between 19 and 50 years and belonged to mostly KP, with a few from the federal capital.
The PTI called the document a “partial list of those admitted to a single hospital in Islamabad”.
In a separate post earlier today, the PTI said a “massacre has unfolded in Pakistan at the hands of security forces”.
It accused the armed security forces of launching a “violent assault on peaceful PTI protesters in Islamabad, firing live rounds with the intent to kill as many people as possible”. It went on to compare last night’s clashes to the violence in East Pakistan in 1971.
“The rulers have learned nothing from history and are prepared to destroy the country to cling to their illegitimate power,” the post went on to say. “With hundreds dead and countless injured, the interior minister’s threat to kill and then the declaration of ‘victory’ over slaughtered innocents is enough evidence of the regime’s inhumanity.”
PTI called on the international community to condemn the “atrocity and the erosion of democracy and humanity in Pakistan”, as well as take action against it.
No state firing on protesters: info minister Tarar
On the other hand, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar refuted the PTI’s allegations of security forces shooting at its protesters.
State-run Radio Pakistan quoted Tarar as saying no firing was carried out on PTI protesters and there were no fatalities among them.
During a visit to the D-Chowk and Jinnah Avenue in Islamabad overnight, he said that while the protesters were dispersed, there was no state firing involved.
The minister said PTI protesters had damaged public property, referring to the deserted vehicles left behind by the protesters. He criticised CM Gandapur and Bushra for fleeing after “making big claims”.
Speaking to the media, he claimed that the PTI convoys “crashed their own vehicles into each other” in a hurry to flee the scene. He described the protesters as leaving behind their shoes and clothes while fleeing.
The minister further said that forensics would be carried out of “documents that got burned in the container” being used by the PTI, implying it was done on purpose.
“The interior minister was constantly monitoring. That the right time would come and then we would deal with them,” Tarar said, asserting that the government did not want bloodshed.
Taking a jibe at Imran terming the protest a “final call”, Tarar dismissed it as nothing more than “a missed call”, the APP reported.
In a separate televised statement, echoing Naqvi’s stance from yesterday, asserted that there was “no concessions and no talks under any circumstances” with the PTI.
HRCP calls for ‘political introspection’
Amid the tense political atmosphere, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) called for “political introspection”, demanding that the government and the PTI “enter a purposeful political dialogue”.
“HRCP demands that the government and the opposition, the PTI, immediately enter a purposeful political dialogue, both on the floor of the house and between different political parties,” it said in a statement.
“It is high time that they agree on a peaceful way forward instead of whipping up the emotions of their respective political workers and bringing the country to a standstill, particularly in Islamabad and Punjab, violating others’ freedom of movement and livelihood in the process,” the group stressed.
HRCP called for “political introspection” for all sides, saying it was “deeply disturbing” that the loss of life in protests and rallies “has been of little concern for any of our political actors”.
“Whether law enforcers or political workers, any casualty must be unacceptable for all,” it stated, adding that the group shared the grief of those who lost family members in “violent protests and through the unwarranted use of force by the authorities”.
Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at The Wilson Center, said on X that “Pakistan’s protests had no winners”.
Anger towards the establishment has increased over the crackdown, he said, while at the same time, PTI was forced to retreat.
“Pakistan on the whole is burdened by a worsening confrontation that distracts from [economic and] security crises,” Kugelman highlighted.
The analyst, in a separate post, pointed out a “problematic disconnect” between Imran and the rest of the PTI leadership.
“[Imran] Khan mobilised and galvanised. He said, fight to the end. And then PTI’s other leaders angered the base for not showing up or abandoning the cause,” he noted. “Today the gulf between Khan and the rest of the PTI leadership came into sharp relief.”
Road to protest
The PTI’s protest, which the government was determined to foil with force, was originally scheduled to be staged on November 24.
However, the party’s convoys took a breather on Sunday night as PTI leaders said they were in “no hurry” to reach the federal capital for their ‘do or die’ protest.
The PTI protesters, some of them employing industrial fans to counter tear gas, crossed Islamabad’s Toll Plaza on Monday night as the government vowed to not spare those behind a cop’s death in “violence of miscreants”.
As PTI workers from across the country attempted to defy arrests, baton charges and tear gas to participate in the agitation, around 800 PTI leaders and supporters were arrested from across Punjab as well as in and near Islamabad on Sunday.
In an update, capital police officials told Dawn that during the ongoing protests, over 500 local PTI leaders and workers have been arrested in Islamabad.
On Tuesday, the Pakistan Army was called into Islamabad to “deal with miscreants”, state-run Radio Pakistan reported. Shortly after, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said three Rangers personnel and a Punjab policeman lost their lives on Monday, in what he said was an “attack by miscreants”.
A stalemate in reported talks between the PTI and the government had continued, with PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan saying the government had “not made any contact” with the party and Naqvi similarly ruling out any negotiations with the party.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) had ruled that PTI’s planned protest was unlawful and had directed the government to take all necessary measures to maintain law and order in Islamabad without disrupting public life, particularly as the Belarusian president’s arrival coincided with the protest.
More to follow
Additional input from Reuters
