RAWALPINDI: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, who reached a police picket near Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail on Thursday afternoon, announced that he, along with PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja and other party members and supporters, would be camping at the spot overnight.
Afridi, who has been seeking a meeting with the incarcerated prime minister since he assumed office of the provincial chief executive in October last year, but to no avail.
He again reached Factory Naka — a police picket near the Adiala jail — today in yet another attempt to meet Imran, with Thursday and Tuesday being court-mandated dates for meeting with the former prime minister.
However, he, as well as Imran’s sisters and lawyers, have been barred from meeting him for the past several weeks — a restriction that has made sit-ins and protests near the prison a usual occurrence. On several occasions, police have also used force to disperse the protesters, who often camp at Factory Naka.
Speaking to the media on Thursday, Afridi announced his plans for an overnight stay and said “most of [PTI] parliamentarians have also reached the spot and some others will be arriving in some time”.
Standing alongside Raja, he added, “This is about our leader’s life. We will not let this get normalised. We will spend the entire night here. We are waiting for a meeting between Imran Khan sahib and his family and personal physician.”
He also said that if deliberate attempts were being made to worsen the situation for no reason, “we cannot do anything about this. All responsibility then lies with the government. Those who are not allowing the meeting will be responsible.”
The KP CM said if Imran’s sisters were allowed to meet him, the situation could be prevented from worsening.
CM Afridi’s visit comes after the PTI on Tuesday raised concerns about Imran’s health. Information Minister Attaullah Tarar confirmed earlier in the day that the PTI founder had undergone a medical procedure for an eye ailment at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) in Islamabad on Saturday night.
Referring to Tarar’s statement, Afridi said he had “serious reservations” about the former premier’s health.
For his part, Raja said they had sent a list of names of those who were supposed to meet Imran to the prison administration as per the directions of the Islamabad High Court. “All those who have been mentioned in the list are present here,” he said.
Raja mentioned that they would not return without meeting the PTI founder today, calling the meeting Imran’s “human right”.
Referring to the former premier’s brief visit to Pims for a procedure, he said, “The PTI founder was taken to Pims secretly on Saturday night. It was certainly a situation where the party founder could not receive treatment in prison.”
“It was the prison administration’s responsibility to inform his family members so that they, along with his personal physician, were present.”
Rawalpindi police had made strict security arrangements ahead of Afridi’s expected arrival on Thursday, with personnel at the prison and in the adjoining areas on high alert.
Police pickets were established near the prison’s gate, at Shaigan Healthcare factory, and in Dahgal and Gorakhpur areas, while female cops were also deployed on pickets on Adiala Road.
Police checkpoints were also set up on the toll plazas of the M1 (Islamabad–Peshawar) and M2 (Lahore-Islamabad) motorways.
Other places where police personnel were deployed included Committee Chowk, Liaquat Bagh, GPO Chowk, Chungi No. 22, Khawaja Corporation Chowk, Gulshanabad Chowk, Thalian and Chakri Interchange.
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