As the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) “Jail Bharo Tehreek” (court arrest movement) kicked off Wednesday, the party’s senior leaders including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Asad Umar and Azam Swati, along with party workers voluntarily surrendered themselves to the Lahore police.
\nThe movement, according to the PTI rationale, aims to counter the “attack on constitutionally-guaranteed fundamental rights” and the “economic meltdown” by the incumbent government”.
\nTaking to its Twitter handle, the PTI shared that its party\u2019s Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Secretary General Asad Umar, Swati, Omar Cheema and other leaders and workers are being taken to the Kot Lakhpat jail in the police van.
\nThe prisoner\u2019s van earlier reached the Camp Jail where workers chanted slogans and several landed on the van\u2019s roof.
\nFormer PTI minister Hammad Azhar, who was present outside the Camp Jail, said: \u201cWe have arrived to have ourselves arrested. They will run out of places [to imprison us]. We have just told a few hundred people for now. They are saying there is no space in jail and have asked us to wait.\u201d
\nThe workers were also seen making TikTok videos. PTI leader Mian Abid also ascended on a police mobile and kicked it while breaking its glass in the process. The politician tried escaping the site, but the police chased and arrested him.
\nEarlier, as the crowd grew more sizable, police barred everyone, including officials, from entering the Capital City Police Office (CCPO) \u2014 where the party had gathered.
\nMany of the party\u2019s senior leaders \u2014 including Qureshi, Umar and Swati \u2014 and activists boarded a prison van, with several workers also climbing onto the roof of the van.
\nLocal police later clarified that these arrests were entirely voluntary, \u201cwe did not arrest them, they have come and sat in the prison van of their own discretion.\u201d
\nOther PTI leaders who climbed onto the police vehicle include former Punjab governor Omar Sarfaraz Cheema.
\nSeveral PTI workers, including women, were also present outside the CCPO building and many lay on the road, demanding that they be arrested.
\nThe PTI workers then got down from the police van and made their way towards Charing Cross.
\nPTI Chairman Imran Khan \u2014 in the wake of sedition cases filed against his party leaders including Fawad Chaudhry, Swati and Shahbaz Gill \u2014 had announced the movement on February 4.
\nIn the first phase of the movement, the party\u2019s senior leaders \u2014 Qureshi and Umar \u2014 had planned Tuesday to voluntarily surrender themselves to the authorities.
\nTaking to Twitter, former prime minister and PTI chief said today that the party \u201cis set to start\u201d the Jail Bharo campaign for two main reasons.
\n“One, it is a peaceful, non-violent protest against the attack on our constitutionally-guaranteed fundamental rights. We are facing sham FIRs and NAB cases, custodial torture, attacks on journalists and social media people,” wrote the PTI chief.
\nKhan went on to say that the second is against the economic meltdown brought on by a “cabal of crooks who have money laundered billions in looted wealth and gotten NROs for themselves while crushing the people, especially, the poor and the middle class, under the burden of spiralling inflation and rising unemployment.”
\nTo invigorate party workers for the movement, Khan also released a video message urging them to \u201cfill up prisons and shatter the idols of fear”.
\nHe called on all Pakistanis to join the movement to achieve “Haqeeqi Azadi” (true freedom).
\nThe provincial government has decided that the criminal histories, and tax and bank records of people arrested under the PTI’s court arrest drive will be thoroughly scrutinised.
\n\u201cIf anyone is found involved in corruption or criminal cases, immediate action will be taken against them,” sources privy to the Punjab government said.
\nThe sources added that all law enforcement agencies have been mobilised in the run-up to the PTI’s movement, adding that since jails in the provincial capital are brimming to capacity, the arrested individuals would have to be sent to jails in other cities like Mianwali and DG Khan.
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