Islamabad: After Imran, there was tension in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on Thursday. KHAN Days after the former prime minister’s party received a show-cause notice for receiving prohibited foreign funds, it called for a protest against the Election Commission and its chief for allegedly being biased against his party.
Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) are face to face. Khan has been accusing Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja of bias.
On Monday, Khan announced that his party workers would protest outside the ECP office in Islamabad on Thursday to press for Raja’s resignation. They decided to change the venue after the police barricaded the roads leading to the place and the government vowed to stop the protesters.
“Today I am calling on all my people to come out in a peaceful public protest against CEC & ECP at F9 Park at 6 PM,” he wrote in a Twitter message. He said that he would address the gathering between 7 pm and 7:30 pm.
“CEC and ECP conspired with the imported government to try a technical knockout against PTI, as the PMLN was defeated in the Punjab by-elections despite the support of the entire state machinery and ECP shenanigans. Now they do so with the entire PDM. Afraid of the fear of having a general election,” he wrote.
The call for protest comes days after the ECP decided in a foreign funding case that Khan’s PTI received funds from prohibited sources and was involved in concealment of funds received from various sources.
Pakistan’s Election Commission said on Tuesday that Khan’s party had received funds against rules from 34 foreign nationals, including an Indian-origin businessman, in a major setback to the former prime minister.
A three-member ECP bench issued show cause notice to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party for receiving banned funds from foreign nationals and foreign companies.
The Pakistan government has said that it will stop the protesters.
Home Minister Rana Sanaullah on Wednesday said that the government will not allow PTI supporters to enter the red zone and protest outside the ECP.
He said strict action would be taken in case of any misadventure by PTI, but added that it is everyone’s right to hold peaceful protests.
Anticipating disturbances by the protesters, the police sealed the red zone and kept containers at the entry points of Islamabad.
Personnel from law enforcement agencies including anti-riot force, paramilitary rangers, frontier corps and police have been deployed around the red zone.
After barricading the main roads, the police proposed to hold a protest at F-9 Park or H-9 Maidan, told PTI.
The ECP’s decision came after The Financial Times newspaper recently published a story titled ‘The strange case of a cricket match that helped Khan’s political rise’.
The report stated that fees were paid to Wootton Cricket Limited, which, despite the name, was actually a Cayman Islands-incorporated company owned by it. NaqviFounder of Dubai based Abraaj Group.
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