Islamabad [Pakistan], September 10 (ANI): Police on Monday arrested Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Barrister Gohar Khan and lawmaker Sher Afzal Marwat outside Parliament House, with more arrests expected for allegedly violating the newly-enacted public gathering law during the PTI power show in Islamabad, Geo News reported.
The Islamabad police said that PTI leaders Omar Ayub Khan and Zartaj Gul Wazir will also be arrested. Sher Afzal Marwat resisted the arrest on Monday and asked the police to show the arrest warrant.
Heavy contingents of police were deployed outside the parliament while all entry and exit routes to the Red Zone were shut from D-Chowk, Nadra Chowk, Serena, and Marriott, except for Margala Road. However, police did not arrest PTI Member of National Assembly Ali Muhammad Khan when he departed from the parliament.
Marwat was arrested for violating regulations mentioned under the Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, Geo News reported, citing sources, adding that the PTI lawmaker was accused of clashing with police personnel on Sunday.
According to sources, all the PTI lawmakers, including Zain Qureshi, Sheikh Waqas Akram, Naseem-ur-Rehman, Zubair Khan and Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) Chairman Sahibzada Hamid Raza, were arrested from the Parliament House.
Sources aware of the matter claimed that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur left for Peshawar from Islamabad, according to Geo News report.
According to sources, Islamabad police were expected to launch a crackdown against PTI’s Punjab leaders who participated in the party’s power show on Sunday. It emerged that Islamabad police informed the Punjab top officials regarding the actions.
In a separate action, Shoaib Shaheen was arrested from his residence. Police registered cases against several leaders of PTI under the newly-enacted Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, at Noon Village and Sangjani police stations.
At least 28 local leaders, including Seemabia Tahir and Raja Basharat, were nominated in the cases. According to the first information report (FIR), the charged PTI workers attacked police teams with batons and pelted stones at them when officers attempted to stop them from violating the Islamabad rally’s route.
The FIR stated that police deployed for security resorted to tear gas shelling and baton charging the party activists, arresting 17 of them from the site of the incident.
The PTI held the power show in Islamabad with party workers and police clashing on Chungi No 26, on the outskirts of Islamabad. The federal capital police said that PTI supporters insistence to use the route set for people caused clashes with law enforcers, Geo News reported.
The Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, was passed through the Senate and the National Assembly amid opposition protests a few days ahead of PTI’s rally in Islamabad, which increased the powers of the federal capital’s local authorities to control public gatherings.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari signed the bill into law a day before Imran Khan-founded party’s rally in Islamabad. The new bill enables the district magistrate to regulate and ban public assemblies in Islamabad, proposing a punishment of up to three years or/and an unspecified fine to the members of an “unlawful assembly.”
The law also proposed that repeat offenders will be liable to imprisonment for a term that may extend to 10 years, Geo News reported.
According to the bill, the ban on assembly under the proposed law would remain in force for the duration specified by the district magistrate, which may be extended if the conditions necessitating the ban continue.
It states, “An officer-in-charge of a police station, on the instruction of the district magistrate, may command any assembly likely to disturb the public peace to disperse. It shall then be the duty of the members of such an assembly to comply and disperse accordingly.” (ANI)
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