LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) Thursday stopped the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) from holding a rally this Sunday at Iqbal Park (Minar-e-Pakistan) and asked the party to let citizens live their routine lives.
The party was planning to hold a “historic” public rally at Lahore’s Minar-e-Pakistan on March 19 and PTI Chairman Im-ran Khan was set to lead it — despite “security threats”. PTI Senior Vice President Fawad Chaudhry had moved the high court a day earlier seeking to stop the police operation in the Zaman Park area. The police had taken action to arrest Khan in the Toshakhana case as per court orders.
After an initial hearing, the high court had ordered police to suspend the operation till 10am yesterday — which helped calm the situation at the former prime minister’s residence which had turned into a battleground.
But yesterday, when Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh resumed the hearing, he noted that neither the LHC nor the Islama-bad High Court (IHC) had stopped the law enforcers from executing the deposed prime minister’s arrest warrants.
In the order issued later, the court said that the “order passed yesterday” shall remain enforced till the next hearing — meaning that the Zaman Park operation has been halted till today.
PTI workers clashed for nearly 24 hours with the law enforcers trying to get through the party supporters and arrest Khan, who was voted out as the prime minister last April.
Scores of people — mostly police personnel — were injured in the process as the law enforcers fired teargas and par-ty supporters resorted to throwing Molotov cocktails.
Legal proceedings against Khan began after he was ousted from office in a parliamentary vote early last year. Since then, he has held nationwide protest rallies demanding a snap election, during one of which he was shot and wound-ed. –Agencies
