10,000 JUI-F volunteers to protect Islamabad marchers

PESHAWAR: The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl on Thursday announced that it would send around 10,000 volunteers of its Ansarul Islam force to Islamabad from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to provide security to the participants of the opposition’s march on March 25.

The JUI-F’s provincial council met here on Thursday with Maulana Attaur Rehman in the chair and worked out the plan for the Islamabad march, according to a statement issued by the JUI-F media cell.

Ansarul Islam is a JUI-F volunteer force, which provides security to the party’s leaders and workers during public rallies, conventions and other events.

The federal government had banned the organisation in Oct 2019 when the JUI-F staged a sit-in against the government in the federal capital. However, the ban was withdrawn in Nov 2021.

JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who is the president of the opposition’s alliance, Pakistan Democratic Movement, had asked party workers to reach Islamabad on March 25 and said they would stay put for an indefinite period.

The statement said the Ansarul Islam volunteers would stay in Islamabad for the security of marchers.

The council decided that the office-bearers of the JUI-F bodies from Haripur and Buner districts would meet in Peshawar on Friday to finalise plan for the mass gathering of the opposition parties in Islamabad.

The meeting of the JUI-F office-bearers from Kohat division will take place in Kohat on March 19, while the party’s organisers in Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan divisions will discuss plan in Serai Nourung area of Lakki Marwat district next day.

The party MNAs, MPAs and local body members will lead rallies for Islamabad from their respective districts.

The JUI-F council also chalked out a plan for the second phase of local body elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

It demanded of the Election Commission of Pakistan to stop Prime Minister Imran Khan from using government machinery and resources for the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s election campaign in the province.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2022