ISLAMABAD: Police on Monday arrested 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 party’s Sunday power show in the capital.
The Islamabad police said that PTI leaders Omar Ayub Khan and Zartaj Gul Wazir would also be taken into custody.
Heavy contingents of police were deployed outside the parliament while all entry and exit routes to the Red Zone were also closed from D-Chowk, Nadra Chowk, Serena, and Marriott, except for Margala Road.
However, PTI MNA Ali Muhammad Khan was not taken into custody by the police when he departed from the parliament.
Marwat was arrested for violating regulations devised under a new law —Peaceful Assembly and Public Order Bill, 2024, sources told Geo News, adding that the PTI lawmaker was accused of clashing with police personnel a day earlier.
The sources claimed that all the PTI lawmakers, including Zain Qureshi, Sheikh Waqas Akram, Naseem-ur-Rehman and Zubair Khan have been arrested from the Parliament House.
The sources privy to the matter claimed that CM Gandapur, however, left for Peshawar from Islamabad.
Islamabad police were expected to launch a crackdown against the former ruling party’s Punjab leaders who attended yesterday’s power show, according to sources.
It emerged that Islamabad police formally informed the Punjab top officials regarding the actions.
In a separate action, Shoaib Shaheen was also arrested from his residence.
Police filed cases against several leaders of the Imran-founded party under 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 also nominated in the cases.
The first information report (FIR) stated that charged PTI workers attacked police teams with batons and pelted them with stones when officers tried to stop them from violating the Islamabad rally’s route.
According to the FIR, police deployed for security resorted to tear gas shelling and baton charging the party activists, arresting 17 of them from the scene.
The PTI staged its much-hyped power show in Islamabad with party workers and police clashing on Chungi No 26, on the outskirts of the capital.
The federal capital police claimed that the PTI supporters’ insistence to use the route set for the general public led to clash with the law enforcers.
