ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s interior minister Rana Sanaullah said on Wednesday former prime minister Imran Khan’s call to his party workers to reach an area close to the parliament house amounted to “contempt of court” since the country’s judiciary had designated a ground near Islamabad’s H-9 sector for his protest rally.
Khan, who is currently leading an anti-government march to the federal capital, vowed not to leave D-Chowk in Islamabad’s sensitive Red Zone area, which houses diplomatic missions and government installations, until the announcement of the date for new general elections.
Hours before his statement, however, Pakistan’s top court had asked the government to provide his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party a ground between the capital’s H-9 and G-9 sectors while hearing a petition for the removal of road blocks in the city.
“Imran [Khan] Niazi’s call for PTI workers to reach D-Chowk is in contempt of today’s Supreme Court decision,” the interior minister said in a statement. “The Supreme Court had given conditional permission to PTI to hold a rally in [Islamabad’s] Sector H-9.”
Sanaullah said PTI workers had set fire to trees in Islamabad’s Blue Area business hub, adding that miscreants were also attacking the police from time to time.
“The job of the state is to ensure law and order and to protect the lives and property of citizens,” he continued. “Police are forced to use tear gas to disperse miscreants. D-Chowk has also been sealed off due to security concerns.”
Pakistan’s top court had said it was “playing the role of the arbitrator” while asking the government not to arrest PTI workers and supporters in police raids across the country.
The three-member bench headed by Justice Ijazul Ahsan demanded a plan to allow anti-government demonstrators to peacefully converge in the capital to register their protest before returning home.
According to Geo news channel, the court said it did not want protesters to shut down places like Faizabad and the Motorway as it happened in some previous instances.
