Police fire tear gas shells at JUI-F protesters at Karachi’s Sharea Faisal

KARACHI: Police have fired tear gas and baton-charged protesters at Karachi’s Sharea Faisal thoroughfare as Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) staged protests in Karachi over alleged rigging in the general election of 2024, which took place on February 8.

As JUI-F activists tried to go to the Karachi Press Club, where the party had planned a sit-in to protest against alleged rigging, police resorted to using tear gas and baton-charging protesters along Karachi’s Sharea Faisal avenue.

Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl Sindh general secretary Rashid Mehmood Soomro has said that the police stopped their “peaceful” procession without an order or legal notice in different areas of Karachi.

“Our mandate was stolen and we have come out to protest peacefully for it […] Supreme Court and High Court should take notice of this,” Soomro said while speaking to Geo News.

Meanwhile, Nisar Khuhro, the president of PPP Sindh, has advised the GDA, PTI, and JUI-F to “wait for the next elections” rather than “waste time” organizing demonstrations.

Speaking to the reporters outside the Sindh Assembly, Khuhro stated that protests were an indication of “disrespect” for the people’s mandate and that the parties should provide proof of the alleged rigging in court.

Khuhro continued, stressing the necessity for the disruption to end as “politics of protests” undermine the nation and lead to political instability. He claimed that the aforementioned parties had been rejected by the populace and were really disobeying the mandate by staging “unjustified” sit-ins.

The PPP candidate pointed out that JUI had never won in Sindh and claimed that the parties had never won more than five or six seats despite their unity.