KARACHI: As only a day left before the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) strike in Karachi, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Sindh deputy general security Manzoor Hussain Wassan said on Thursday that no one would be allowed to forcefully shutdown the country’s biggest city on December 12.
Under its ‘Plan C’, the PTI has announced to observe a strike in Karachi on Friday as a part of its efforts to pressurize the federal government to launch an investigations into alleged rigging in 2013 general elections.
The Sindh information minister Sharjeel Memon also reportedly said earlier in a statement that the provincial government would not allow the PTI Chairman Imran Khan to close down all of Karachi.
“If PTI workers try to shut down the city by force, government machinery will swing into action,” he said.
The Karachi Transport Ittehad has also announced to run buses as normal in the city on Friday, adding that it won’t run transport at places where sit-ins will be staged by the PTI workers.
The general secretary Transport Ittehad Mehmood Afridi said that if situation worsens, they will suspend transport across Karachi.
Earlier on December 8, violent clashes erupted between workers of the PTI and the Pakistan Muslim league-Nawaz (PML-N) in Faisalabad amid the PTI’s strike call.
A 22-year-old PTI activist Haq Nawaz was killed while a couple of others injured in the clashes.
As per program, the PTI will also observe a strike in Lahore on December 15 and the countrywide shutdown will take place on December 18.
However, Imran Khan said while addressing participants of his ongoing sit-in at D-Chowk in Islamabad on Wednesday evening that he will call off his ‘plan C’ if government is ready to set up a judicial commission before the PTI’s call to shutdown Karachi on December 12.
The federal government on Wednesday extended an unconditional dialogue to the PTI which the party accepted, and also appealed to Imran Khan to withdraw his shutdown call.
