Beep beep… it’s a text message from Imran

Many citizens of Karachi received this text message on their cell phones on Tuesday and Wednesday: “I invite you to the National Unity Convention in Karachi on 25th December at Mazar-e-Quaid. I hope to see you there with all family and friends! Imran Khan.”
It appears that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is making full use of the telecommunication technology to ensure that its Karachi rally is a success.
The party also ran a successful campaign through the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) through phone calls to subscribers, in which the PTI chief, in a recorded message, asks citizens to attend the rally.
The PTI has also hired the services of cellular phone companies to make its convention successful.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) claimed that it cannot stop the PTCL or any cellular company from doing its business until it receives a complaint against such phone calls or text messages.
“It is a commercial activity and the PTA has nothing to do with this,” said Col (retd) Muhammad Younus, the authority’s information director.
The cellular companies have sent the PTI’s message to all those who bought a subscriber identity module (SIM) in Karachi, even those who are no longer living in the city.
“I received a text message on Tuesday from PTI Chairman Imran Khan and he invited me to his party’s National Unity Convention on December 25,” Amjad Ali, a resident of Gilgit who studied at the University of Karachi (KU), told Pakistan Today on the phone.
“I have forwarded Khan’s invitation to my friends in Karachi and asked them to participate in the PTI convention on my behalf. However, they replied that they were invited twice, once on their landline numbers and then they also received the invitation through text messages on their cell phones,” he added.
Many youngsters have also started approaching their friends to convince them to attend the PTI convention.
Sarmad Ali, a former KU student, told Pakistan Today that he has asked many friends and acquaintances to participate in the convention.
“We have hired a minibus and all my friends have decided to go see Imran at the Mazar-e-Quaid on December 25,” he said. “We will leave from Shahrah-e-Faisal in the form of a caravan,” he added. “No one is sponsoring this and we are doing all this on our own.”