Baton charging a peaceful rally
Imran Khan has held rallies, walks and public meetings all over the country. Despite being regarded an unforgiving political rival, he has not hindered from conducting normal political activity. The PPP leadership has in fact frequently taken credit for not gagging or arresting its opponents. The baton charge on the PTI’s rally in Karachi on Monday, the resort to water cannon and tear gas shelling, however, brings to question the claim. The action is highly condemnable. When the rally was completely peaceful, as brought out by media, there was no need whatsoever to take recourse to repressive measures. The arrest of the party’s secretary general and a number of party leaders of its Sindh chapter is equally regrettable.
The Sindh government’s claim that the situation in Karachi being unusual, rallies cannot be allowed is unacceptable. Why didn’t Karachi administration obstruct the two rallies organised in May by the activists of Mohajir Suba Tehrik (MST) in support of the division of Sindh? Did these rallies not amount to exacerbating the ethnic differences and causing mischief? Why are other parties holding different political views are debarred from conducting normal political activities? Last month “Mohabbat-e-Sindh” rally was attacked by goons with sophisticated weapons while the government machinery looked the other way. This led to the killing of several participants in the rally. This time the police was ordered to disperse a peaceful procession organised by the PTI. People from all over the country have contributed to the development of Karachi which is a multi-ethnic Sindhi city. It would be setting a dangerous trend to debar parties from interior Sind and those led by leaders from other provinces from conducting political activity in Karachi.
The PTI has thrown a challenge to the two mainstream parties. Only time will show if its claims of winning the next elections are realistic or mere pipe dreams. It goes to the credit of the ruling parties in Punjab, KP and Balochistan that despite Imran’s acerbic criticism of opponents, they have borne with him. That this should not be the case with the Karachi administration is worrisome.