ISLAMABAD: The federal government has decided not to allow the PTI to hold the long march towards Islamabad, announced Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah on Tuesday.
Addressing a press conference flanked by the leaders of coalition parties, the interior minister said that the participants of the long march will be stopped.
He said the federal cabinet has decided not to let PTI go ahead with its long march in order to avoid the spread of "fitna" and "fasad". He declared the long march "undemocratic".
“The decision has been taken to stop them from spreading their agenda of manipulation and division,” the interior minister said, adding that the PTI leadership have moved from “abuses to bullets”.
The minister was referring to constable Kamal Ahmad, who was gunned down last night during a police raid at a PTI leader’s house in Lahore's Model Town.
Sanaullah claimed that the PTI leadership has disappeared from their residences and had gathered in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He claimed that the PTI leadership is planning to use the province's resources and personnel to "come and attack the federation".
"They want to come as a mob that has no legal or constitutional status […] this cannot be allowed."
The interior minister said that former prime minister and PTI Chairman Imran Khan wanted to divide the nation. Warning the PTI supporters, he said: "Don't be misled by Imran Khan. He directed his party members during rallies to call people from other parties robbers and traitors. This is how he wants to spread chaos and disorder."
“Everybody has the right of freedom of expression and peaceful protest; however, the PTI did not want a peaceful protest,” he said, adding that if they hadn’t called it a “bloody march”, the government wouldn’t have stopped them.
The interior minister said that the protection of the lives and properties of the capital's people is the responsibility of the government and it will fulfil its duties "at all costs".