The PTI held a three-hour “symbolic hunger strike” outside Parliament House on Tuesday, demanding the National Assembly speaker’s intervention on actions against the party and its leaders.
Earlier this month, while speaking to reporters in Adiala Jail, incarcerated former premier Imran Khan had said he was mulling the decision to go on a hunger strike if justice was denied to him.
A day ago, police and the Federal Investigation Agency raided PTI’s Central Office over the suspicion of alleged “anti-state digital campaigns” and arrested the party’s information secretary, Raoof Hasan. The party also alleged that its lawmakers were being swayed with offers of bribes or threatened with legal proceedings against them.
To register their protest, PTI leaders Asad Qaiser, Barrister Gohar Ali Khan, Ali Muhammad Khan and several others were seen sitting outside Parliament today.
Speaking to the media, Qaiser said that the party had started a “local protest” — calling it a “symbolic hunger strike” in a post on X — against its victimisation.
“We don’t want to create any [unfavourable] law and order situation in the country,” Qaiser told journalists while sitting outside the parliament.
“But given what is happening to us — the ongoing campaign against us, the pressure on our MNAs, the cases against them and the offers being made to sway their loyalties — what other option do we have?” he said.
“We have, therefore, decided to hold this [protest].”
On the other hand, Barrister Gohar said lawmakers did not need permission to stage a protest on the premises of the Parliament.
“This is our right, we are parliamentarians, and parliamentarians are entitled to conduct themselves however they want within the premises of the Parliament,” he said. “We can express our opinions [here] however we want.”
He said the protest conveyed the party’s position against the “injustice, unfairness, and the illegal and unconstitutional things that are happening [to us].”
He added that PTI parliamentarians were staging a sit-in to uphold the law and the constitution, despite having reservations about some “strangers” occupying parliamentary positions.
Addressing a press conference later with other PTI leaders, Gohar said that this was the first time the party was putting up a hunger strike inside Parliament.
“We protested from 3-6pm today,” he said, adding that the protests would be carried out daily.
He said the PTI was protesting against the political victimisation of its members, particularly Imran.
“The way Imran has been kept in jail, the way Bushra Bibi is being arrested again and again in one case or the other, the way Imran’s bails are refused, the way PTI Central Secretariat was attacked.
“We have made this camp to protest against all this,” Gohar said.
Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Omar Ayub said the camp was set up to show solidarity with the former premier.
He said the party was protesting against three things: the incarceration of Imran, Bushra Bibi and PTI workers; inflation and the disruption of peace in the country.
Meanwhile, Judicial Magistrate Muhammad Shabbir granted the Federal Investigation Agency a two-day physical remand of PTI spokesperson Raoof Hasan and other arrested PTI leaders to “facilitate” the probe.
A day prior, Hasan was apprehended by the Islamabad police as the interior ministry accused the party of peddling “anti-state propaganda”.
The magistrate ordered the suspects’ appearance before the court on Thursday.
Separately, the PTI’s central secretariat was also sealed by the Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation for not having fire and life safety standards and measures in place.
Additional reporting by Umer Mehtab and Shakeel Qarar.
