JUI-F leaders, workers booked for staging sit-in

Police on Friday booked Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leaders for staging a sit-in on Karachi’s Hub River Road.

An FIR was registered at the Mochko police station on behalf of state. It was registered under sections 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting with a deadly weapon), 149 (unlawful assembly), 341 (wrongful restraint) and 427 (mischief causing damage) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The party’s Sindh general secretary, Rashid Soomro, former provincial assembly member Maulana Sadiq, Maulana Noorul Haq, Maulana Shamsuddin and Qari Sheraz were also named in the FIR with 250 unidentified people for holding a sit-in, causing a massive traffic jam on Hub River Road, connects Karachi to Balochistan.

As part of its Azadi March’s Plan B to put more pressure on the federal government for Prime Minister Imran Khan’s resignation, the JUI-F Sindh chapter had staged the sit-in on Hub River Road on Thursday.

A heavy contingent of police and Rangers officials had been deployed at the place for the JUI-F’s sit-in. “Apart from three platoons of the Rapid Response Force and Reserve Police, we have eight police mobile vans and Rangers troops for security purposes,” Mochko Station House Officer Wasim Muhammad told The News.

“They [the protesters] are non-violent and we are just providing security to them,” said the officer. He added that the sit-in did not cause any traffic jam, as the traffic diversion plan from the Northern Bypass had already been issued. The JUI-F has been staging sit-ins at five points in Sindh against the PTI government.