Peshawar: Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party held a massive rally in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on the completion of the party founder’s one year in jail and pledged to make concerted efforts for his release with a similar rally in capital Islamabad by month end.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) rally was held in Swabi district of the party-ruled province bordering Punjab on Monday and addressed by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur besides party chairman Gohar Ali Khan and Secretary General Omar Ayub.
Khan, 71, was arrested on August 5 last year and lodged at Attock jail. However, in September he was shifted to Adiala Jail at Rawalpindi. Khan, who served as prime minister of Pakistan from August 2018 to April 2022, faces over 200 cases, with convictions in a few of them.
The PTI leaders said the former cricketer-turned-politician cannot be kept in jail any longer as he is the leader of the biggest party of the country.
They also announced to hold the party’s next show of strength in the capital Islamabad “by the end of this month or in September” and declared that no authority could stop them from holding the rally.
Announcing that the rally would be held in Islamabad's D Chowk, Gandapur said that Khan stood firm on what he believed in. He said that the former prime minister was taking steps to “secure the future of the country and its children.” “The founding chairman has said that he will not let the nation bow down in front of anyone. Freedom is being taken away from us, and we cannot allow that,” Gandapur said. He added that Khan believed in achieving freedom in the truest sense of the word.
“If we do not achieve this objective, history and the nation will not forgive us. We raise our voices and promise to support Khan till the last drop of our blood,” the KP chief minister said.
Gandapur assured that if his party returned to power, it would put an end to terrorism. He asked the gathering which government functionaries had created lawlessness in the country. “We will fight until true freedom is achieved. In today's meeting, the views of the PTI chairman have shown that he is only thinking about the country,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, Khan’s party had claimed that the former Pakistan prime minister is being given “substandard food” in jail on the orders of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, leading to deterioration in his health and demanded his immediate medical check up.