Pakistan oppn holds mass rally calling for PM Khan to go

KARACHI: Tens of thousands of opposition supporters rallied in Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi on Sunday as part of a campaign to oust Prime Minister Imran Khan, who they accuse of being installed by the military in a rigged election two years ago. The mass demonstration in Karachi was the second in three days launched by Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), formed last month by nine major opposition parties to begin a nationwide agitation against the government.

Under Khan, Pakistan has experienced mounting censorship of the media and a crackdown on dissent, critics and opposition. But the campaign against him sought to tap into discontent over his handling of the economy, which was tanking even before the global coronavirus pandemic struck. “You’ve snatched jobs from people. You have snatched two-time a day food from the people,” Maryam Nawaz, the daughter and political heir of the former three-time premier Nawaz Sharif, told the rally.

In the early hours of yesterday, police snatched her husband, arresting Muhammad Safdar following complaints from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party that he had raised political slogans at the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, an action deemed illegal. “Police broke my room door at the hotel I was staying at in Karachi and arrested Capt. Safdar,” Nawaz tweeted yesterday morning. A spokesman of the provincial government said police had not acted on their orders.

During Sunday’s rally she had shared the platform with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, whose late mother Benazir Bhutto was also prime minister two times. “Our farmers have hunger in their homes... our youth is disappointed,” said Zardari, whose Pakistan People’s Party governs the southern city of Karachi. The message struck a chord with their supporters, in a country now suffering double digit inflation and negative economic growth. “Inflation has broken the back of poor citizens forcing many to beg to feed their children,” said Faqeer Baloch, 63, at the Karachi rally. —Reuters