ISLAMABAD: Demanding that the government allow jailed Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan to meet his sisters and party leaders, the opposition alliance warned authorities on Friday of nationwide protests if the government did not mend its ways.
“We have stopped Sindhis, Balochs, Pashtuns and Punjabis from taking to the streets against the government and its policies, otherwise they would come out and create problems for the rulers,” Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) president Mehmood Achakzai said during a joint press conference with other opposition leaders outside Parliament.
He said the government had turned parliament into a rubber stamp and National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq was following diktat from elsewhere. He said that people were being killed in the tribal areas, but the NA president did not allow the opposition to speak on this serious issue.
He questioned why Imran Khan was imprisoned and why he was not allowed to meet his sisters and party leaders. “The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is sitting in front of Adiala jail, but no one is paying attention to his request to meet the PTI founder,” he said.
Buried democracy
On the occasion, PTI leader Asad Qaiser said that democracy had been buried in the recent by-elections.
He claimed that the results of the by-election held in Haripur, in which the wife of former opposition leader Omar Ayub was contesting, had been changed. “The result of Form 47 was different from the one altered on the computer,” he alleged.
Lawyer Gohar said the opposition wanted to remain part of parliament and the democratic system, but alleged fraud in the by-elections had made this difficult.
“As far as I know [Imran] Khan, will no longer allow us to be part of parliament,” he added.
Published in Dawn, November 29, 2025
