ISLAMABAD: Police in Pakistan’s federal capital said on Friday the district administration had revoked the permission to “a political party” to hold a rally on July 6 and warned of legal action against anyone who violated the decision.
The announcement came as former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was preparing to hold the rally to protest the tax-laden budget presented last month, along with the spiraling cost of living in the country.
PTI said earlier this month that the federal government was delaying the issuance of a no-objection certificate for it to hold the public meeting, as its leaders promised record-breaking numbers.
The party maintained it never stopped its rivals from holding political rallies during its tenure in power.
“The district administration has revoked the permit for a political party’s rally on July 6,” the police announced in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “No rally will be allowed without a permit.”
“Legal action will be taken against those who take the law into their own hands,” it added. “Islamabad police will ensure the maintenance of law and order in the city at all costs.”
Earlier, the PTI criticized the state for “abducting” a senior member of its media team ahead of the rally in Islamabad, accusing it of focusing more on quelling dissent than dealing with the problem of militant violence.
“Rizwan Ahmad, a senior member of the PTI Media Department, has been abducted by agencies a short while ago,” Omar Ayub, a top PTI leader, said on social media. “This action by the agencies is just to silence his voice.”
“The agencies are not doing their job of countering terrorism and the latest assassination of Senator Hidayat Ullah Khan is an example, but they are busy silencing the voices of PTI that dare to speak the truth,” he added, referring to the killing of a Pakistani lawmaker in the northwestern Bajaur district in a blast that killed four others.
Only a day earlier, Amnesty International condemned such incidents against PTI workers and their family members, pointing out that they had been “forcibly disappeared since June 2024.”