Tens of thousands of protesters, including women and children, were gathering in Islamabad on Tuesday, less than a mile away from the Parliament House, as police stood by to stop them from entering the heavily-guarded area where the president, the prime minister, and foreign embassies are situated.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, the organised protest, which had been peaceful so far, was being dubbed the “million-march” by Tahirul Qadri, the Tehreek-e-Minhajul Qutan chief.
The report quoted analysts as saying Qadri was the new poster child for the military, which wanted to influence the electoral process.
“All elections in Pakistan have been overseen by the military except in 1977 – and even that government was later annulled by an army dictator,” says Raza Rumi, director at an Islamabad-based think tank, the Jinnah Institute.
Rumi said Qadri’s challenge to the government came as the civilian government was set to see a prime minister make it the full five years for the first time and hold independent elections, which the military might perceive as a threat to its power.
Offices, businesses, and schools decided to close on Monday ahead of the massive number of people expected to show up in Islamabad.
And the CSM report quoted analysts as saying the fact that the schools would reopen largely depended on whether the protesters’ kept their promise to continue their demonstrations until an interim government took over.
The government in Islamabad had blocked roads and dispatched thousands of police officials in riot gear.
It had also suspended cellular networks in the city in what appeared to be an attempt at disrupting coordination between the protesters, despite official claims it was in an effort to protect Qadri’s march from Taliban, who it said had made threats on the group.
The report said the Taliban had not commented on this, but since “Qadri issued a fatwa against the Taliban in 2010 and is considered to be a moderate Islamist, the likelihood of such a threat does exist”.
The march comes on the heels of four days of protests in Quetta over a major Shia killing, which led to a state of emergency, late Sunday night.
“If Dr Tahirul Qadri capitalises on the crowd he has gathered today, which is a lot more than that in Quetta and refuses to leave Islamabad,” says Muneeb Farooq, a political talk-show host based in Lahore where the march started, “the situation may go out of the hands of the government and the demand for military intervention may be the only option out for it.”
