TTAP condemns police violence against protesters in Lahore

LAHORE: Chief Organiser Tehreek-e-Tahafuz-e-Ayin-e-Pakistan (TTAP) Punjab Ammar Ali Jan and Information Secretary TTAP Punjab Shayan Bashir have condemned the indiscriminate police violence unleashed on peaceful demonstrators outside Aiwan-e-Adl on Wednesday, saying that three years after his incarceration Imran Khan remains the most popular leader in the country and a unifying symbol whose standing continues to terrify the illegitimate rulers of this province. They said the day marked the abandonment of even the pretence that Article 16 of the Constitution still stands in Punjab.

Thousands of citizens, workers, lawyers and civil society members had assembled outside the courts when police baton-charged the gathering without provocation, striking women and children present at the site. PTI Lahore President Mian Akram Usman and MPA Sheikh Imtiaz were manhandled, their clothing torn in public view. More than fifty workers, along with sitting members of the Punjab Assembly, were taken into custody.

“A government that will not answer an application on paper has chosen to answer it with lathis in the street,” Bashir said. “PTI Lahore applied in writing to the Lahore Deputy Commissioner for permission to assemble peacefully. The administration returned silence. Today it returned batons.”

The protests were not confined to Lahore. Demonstrations were held in Faisalabad, Multan, Rawalpindi, Kasur, Jhang, Kamalia in Toba Tek Singh and other districts across Punjab. The state’s own conduct is the measure of what it fears. Permission was refused across three provinces, a courthouse precinct was baton-charged and elected legislators were dragged into custody, all on account of a man who has been in a cell since 2023. Nobody deploys that against a spent force.

Ammar Ali Jan said the beating was not aimed at one party alone. “When the state clubs women, children and elected representatives outside a courthouse, it is not policing a crowd, it is informing ordinary people that the Constitution was written for somebody else,” he said. “A right that survives only until the administration is irritated by it is not a right at all.”

The warning had already been given. Amnesty International said on Tuesday that ahead of the anniversary gatherings the authorities must facilitate the right to peaceful protest and ensure there was no repeat of unlawful and arbitrary arrests. Punjab read that warning and did the opposite within twenty four hours.

The violence reached beyond political workers. Aaj TV court reporter Natiq Rehan was assaulted by police while covering the rally and placed in a prisoners van, filmed and reported in the press. When the state beats the witness alongside the demonstrator, it has said plainly what it wants kept off the record.

The leaders demanded the immediate release of every detained worker and legislator, registration of cases against the officers who ordered and carried out the operation, and a judicial inquiry into the conduct of the Lahore administration.