PAT sit-ins to mushroom across country

•Qadri says PAT and allied parties will stage sit-ins across country starting Monday evening •Invites ‘neglected, downtrodden’ countrymen to stage sit-ins against rulers who have “failed them”

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) Chairman Dr Tahirul Qadri has announced that countrywide sit-ins would be staged in support of ‘Inqilab’ starting from Monday evening.

“These sit-ins will be held across all four provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan,” Qadri said while addressing his party’s supporters at Khyaban-e-Suharwardy.

“Whether Sunni or Shia, Deobandi or Barelvi, religious or secular, from any location or ethnicity…from this evening onward, all groups will stage sit-in in protest,” he said, adding that if the law and order situation deteriorates, the government would be responsible.

Qadri said that even though the government knows about threats to his life yet his personal bullet-proof SUV was locked through jammers to prevent him from addressing the ‘Inqilab’ marchers, adding that these measures would provoke the participants of the march.

“The Interior Ministry had sent me seven letters each stating life threats to me from terrorist forces,” he said.

The PAT chief claimed that the PM and interior minister would be responsible if his supporters are provoked. “This attitude of the government is undemocratic,” he lamented.

Highlighting the “utter absence of rule of law”, Qadri asked the government what it considers as democracy and constitution.

He said raids were being conducted at his workers’ houses in Karachi following the call for countrywide protests.

He said Karachi was once a peaceful city but had now had now become violent. Qadri said that at least 20,000 people were kidnapped from the constituency of Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah.

He criticised the Sindh government for its inefficiency in addressing the needs of the people, particularly minorities. He called on “all Sindhis and Balochis” to join the movement, outlining how their “rulers have failed them”.

He regretted that although local-bodies elections were conducted in Balochistan yet power was not transferred to the grass-root level.

“Are Baloch people not humans; don’t they need services like universities and hospitals,” he questioned, saying that there is only one medical college and one university in Balochistan.

Meanwhile during Qadri’s speech, one of the loudspeakers placed on the stage exploded due to a short circuit, creating panic.

Qadri later told his supporters to clean the entire area where the PAT marchers have staged a sit-in, urging them to consider Islamabad as their own home.

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