Though Tuesday was a relatively peaceful day on the Constitution Avenue yet the allegations of Javed Hashmi against Imran Khan and the one voice of joint sitting of the Parliament to stand by the democracy continued haunting PTI the entire day.
No major incidents of clashes between the protestors and police personnel could be seen except some incidents of stone pelting on the Constitution Avenue where now a thin crowd of the two protesting parties was present. The crowd of PTI as well as PAT is decreasing day by day after the use of heavy shelling by police and in the wake of arrests. However, the sit-in of PAT workers continued in front of the PM house as well as Pakistan Secretariat. The protesters succeeded to push down two containers placed atop other two containers in front of the PTV building. The official work at Pak Secretariat remained at standstill for the second consecutive day.
Earlier, an important meeting of the PTI core committee was held at the container of Azadi March soon after the joint sitting of the Parliament to discuss the speeches of the treasury and opposition benches. The core committee decided that the parliamentary leader of the PTI in National Assembly Shah Mahmood Qureshi along with other MNAs of the party would attend the joint sitting of the parliament on Wednesday and answer the allegations of treasury as well as opposition point by point.
It was also decided that after the speech of Qureshi, PTI would announce its resignations on the floor of the assembly. The second important development was the first ever visit of Dr Tahirul Qadri to the container of Imran Khan on the pretext of failure of his sound system. Dr Qadri standing atop the container of Khan asked him not to send Qureshi to the Parliament saying it was a fake assembly. However, Imran was of the view that they could clarify their stance while doing so. Imran, answering allegations of Hashmi, said, “Hashmi sahib, I am hurt by your statement that I was backed by army and present chief justice or doing all for power.”
He said 13 months before in the CEC meeting of the party, he had asked that they would knock every door of justice for verification of election results and if failed till next summer, then they should be prepared to come on roads. “At that time army chief was Gen Kayani and chief justice was Iftikhar Chaudhry and both have gone,” he clarified. “Hashmi sahib, I am hurt because you know that I don’t get dictation from any one,” he said. Imran said and added if accountability of elections was held, more than 100 MNAs of the present assembly would go home. -nation
