Pak anti-govt protest gathers steam

Pakistan opposition parties yesterday accused the Prime Minister Imran Khan led government of plotting to divide their unity by dirty politics, a day after tens of thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Karachi as part of a campaign to oust Prime Minister Imran Khan, who they accuse of being installed by the military in a rigged election two years ago. 

The mass demonstration in Karachi was the second in three days launched by Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), formed last month by nine major opposition parties to begin a nationwide agitation against the government.

Under Khan, Pakistan has experienced mounting censorship of the media and a crackdown on dissent, critics and opposition. But the campaign against him sought to tap into discontent over his handling of the economy, which was tanking even before the global coronavirus pandemic struck.

"You've snatched jobs from people. You have snatched two-time a day food from the people," Maryam Nawaz, the daughter and political heir of the former three-time premier Nawaz Sharif, told the rally.

In the early hours yesterday, police arrested her husband Muhammad Safdar following complaints from Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party that he had raised political slogans at the mausoleum of Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, an action deemed illegal.

"Police broke my room door at the hotel I was staying at in Karachi and arrested Capt. Safdar," Nawaz tweeted yesterday morning. A spokesman of the provincial government said police had not acted on their orders.

Maryam Nawaz, also PML-N's vice-president, and JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman claimed that Safdar was arrested with the aim of dividing the opposition's anti-government alliance.

During Sunday's rally she had shared the platform with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the PPP president whose party governs Karachi.

"Our farmers have hunger in their homes... our youth is disappointed," said Zardari.

The message struck a chord with their supporters, in a country now suffering double digit inflation and negative economic growth.

On Friday, the opposition held a mass rally in Punjab, a stronghold for Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (N). Addressing the rally via video link from London, Nawaz Sharif accused army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa of rigging the 2018 elections and orchestrating his ouster in 2017, saying the corruption charges brought against him were concocted.