LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Shah Mahmood Qureshi is the first person to have courted arrest as part of party’s “Jail Bharo” movement [court arrest drive].
Reports said police put the PTI vice chairman in the prison van. Later, other leaders including Zubair Niazi and Asad Umar sat in the prison van by themselves. Omar Sarfraz Cheema and Azam Swati also surrendered themselves while Hammad Azhar sat atop a vehicle.
Hours earlier, supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) started gathering at Zaman Park, the residence of party chairman Imran Khan in Lahore, to kickstart the “Jail Bharo” movement [court arrest drive] in a bid to push for elections and register protest against economic instability and crackdown on party leaders and workers.
PTI’s Senior Vice President Shah Mahmood Qureshi and general secretary Asad Umar decided to court arrest on the first day of the movement. Accordingly, Mr Qureshi addressed the workers on Jail Road and asked them to be ready for a great cause the PTI has been pursuing. He said Imran Khan had stopped him from offering arrest but he would reach Charing Cross and court arrest as he was a prominent leader and was supposed to lead from the front.
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As hundreds of PTI activists began their journey toward Mall Road, several roads witnessed a traffic jam and the party supporters seemed enthusiastic. The party leaders announced that they had made the event a momentous occasion.
A key meeting was held by the governing body of the PTI’s Central Punjab wing to finalise the strategy for the movement that would start from the provincial capital and later would be extended to other parts of the country. Peshawar will witness the launch of movement on Feb 23 while it will start in Multan on Feb 25, Gujranwala on Feb 26, Sargodha on Feb 27 and Sahiwal on Feb 28. It will hit Faisalabad city on March 1.
The social media handles of the party are busy in motivating the supporters for the drive as messages from party leaders are being shared from time to time. Mr Khan, in a video message a day earlier, urged the supporters to fill up the prisons and break the idols of fears.
