Political tempers

Amidst an effort to create a consensus on issues such as terrorism, the political temperature in the country refuses to go down. On Tuesday, the PTI announced a hunger strike camp outside Parliament House in Islamabad to demand the release of party founder Imran Khan and other leaders. Barrister Gohar says a hunger strike will be observed from 3pm to 8pm daily. Whether this hunger strike is a serious effort to exert pressure on the government or not, the past few days have also seen the government resort to what comes across as a rather desperate attempt to crack down on the PTI. The Islamabad administration sealed the PTI’s central office over a ‘lack of fire and life safety arrangements’, saying that the building lacked up-to-date fire extinguishers, an emergency evacuation plan, an independent power source for the emergency system, and standard electric wiring. But was this really the reason the PTI’s central office was sealed? Of course not. And was this the reason the Islamabad Police took PTI Information Secretary Raoof Hasan into custody from the party’s central secretariat for heading a digital media cell and its alleged involvement in running anti-Pakistan propaganda? [A district and sessions court in Islamabad granted Hasan’s two-day physical remand to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)}. Raoof’s arrest comes after the party’s foreign media coordinator and several social media activists were arrested. Political activities are any party’s democratic right. Such steps make any government’s democratic credentials suspect.

On another note, senior PTI leader Asad Qaiser has dismissed media reports regarding Imran Khan’s alleged confessional remarks’ of admitting to calling for a protest outside the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi before his May 9 arrest. According to media reports, Imran Khan recently told journalists that he had given a call for a peaceful protest outside the GHQ before his arrest in response to the ‘attack’ on his Zaman Park residence by law enforcers. It would be tough for all journalists to have gotten something like this wrong.

When Imran’s statement came out on Monday, many wondered if he was admitting to have given a protest call outside the GHQ and if so, why has he has he been insisting on calling the May 9 incident a ‘false flag operation’? It is indeed this false flag mantra that has enraged the state because it is tantamount to saying that the army attacked its own buildings to ‘trap’ the PTI. While the PTI has won many legal battles ever since it went out of power and especially before and after the elections, it still has a lot of political battles that it has to face. The government’s plans, however, seem to be thoughtless. From first announcing a ban on the PTI to then saying they need to take its allies into confidence, the government seems clueless about fighting the PTI politically. It is time to reach out to opponents for talks because Pakistan faces challenges like the economy, terrorism and polarization.