Islamabad - Around 4.30am on Monday morning the residents were shocked when quiet and calm surroundings of Bani gala echoed with the loud roar of trucks and the whole place filled with loud human voices.
With in no time Bani gala’s 60 feet wide Korang Road was packed with police trucks. The scene became more frightening when, Punjab police officials in riot gears, jumped out of the vehicles in a commando style and took firing positions. And then suddenly, there were blue helmets and glittering sticks everywhere, which were shining in the dim light of early dawn.
Some Policemen were shouting and giving directions to their colleagues to assemble in files. Some took positions outside the houses and shops situated on the main Korang Road, while others dispersed asking locals if there were any toilets in the shopping center.
A DSP rank officer was standing near a jeep parked couple of meters away near the Old Cradle Public School.
Hurry up, go away, a policeman shouted pointing at a local who in a state of confusion stopped after seeing so much police in the half-urban half rural settlement, hardly 15 minutes drive away from Zero point.
The guards doing their duties in villas around opted to do a vanishing act running inside the houses.
As the time passed and sun light made things visible, it was easy to guess that the target of Police was PTI chief Imran Khan’s house.
Are they here to arrest the Khan or will they just put him under house arrest. In either case how will the locals move around. Are they again going to besiege residents with containers, like they did last month when protesters started their protest?
But nobody has the courage to ask the questions nor anyone seemed interested in answering.
Then a breaking human voice appeared. Somebody was shouting on a microphone probably, asking to handover the political workers Khan freed last night.
Last night, while on his way back to Bani Gala, Khan and some workers stopped a police van and freed arrested workers by force.
Now the voice was clear. Police was repeatedly asking to hand over those culprits from the lawmaker and chairman of the third largest political party in the country.
The scene looked like out of a Hollywood action-thriller, in which police surrounds the house of some mafia chief and asks him to surrender.
Imran Khan give us our prisoners back otherwise we will break the house, the voice on the loudspeaker echoed again. The guard of PTI chief deputed at entry barrier was standing aghast.
At the time when police were surrounding the Khan’s house, hundreds of their colleagues tightened the security on roads and allowed cars to pass the check posts after strict scrutiny and verbal harassment.
A police behavior with passers by was the same in Bani Gala too. Motorists who managed to crawl between the parked trucks were snubbed by the officials and were ordered to push away.
And suddenly, the police started mounting the parked vans. “Get in the buses, hurry!” someone was shouting, and then engines roared and vans started leaving the area.
Curious locals quickly turned to their televisions to find out what happened but was once again surprised when their TV screens were flashed with tickers, “Prime Minister and Interior Minister have reprimanded the newly-appointed Inspector-General of Islamabad Tahir Alam, for surrounding Khan’s house.
Did Punjab Police initiate the operation against the lawmaker, without the approval of the top brass? Why was IG Islamabad reprimanded when Punjab Police took the action? Is Punjab police working under IG Islamabad, if yes then what was Mushtaq Sukhera doing? These were the questions people asked after the police left.
Sukhera was appointed new IG Punjab by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif couple of months back and was reportedly tasked to avert terrorists and political unrest. Sukhera, who is directly reporting to CM Punjab, controls Punjab Police present in the capital.
This police action was so unusual for the community that it became main subject of discussions in the drawings rooms of the farmhouses and villas, mostly owned by most influential and powerful elite of the country.
This is nonsense in these circumstances that will make people believe that the police raided Khan’s house without permission, a retired bureaucrat opined.
The whole scenes was mishandled. First they mismanaged the model town incident, and then used unnecessary force against the protestors, and made the storm in a tea cup turn into a real storm, even a trained Tehsildar could have handled it, a Joint Secretary of DMG group opined.
Yes, but I’m unable to understand why the protesters were first allowed to enter the capital then the marchers forcefully entered red zone, moving heavy containers with cranes. Why did the state not react against them? They were baton charged but government kept silent, now marchers are beating journalists and police but government is mum, and now the raid on Khan’s house. What is the actual reason behind this silence, another retired bureaucrat raised his concerns.
“Nothing it is just a psychological warfare, a typical weapon of policing, police is deliberately harassing people by typical police high headedness, this was a businessman who was annoyed with the insulting behaviour of police deployed at hundreds of check posts, erected at every other corner of the city.
The discussion went on but like any ordinary citizen, the elite and most learned people present in the room were clueless who were calling the shots, and what will happen next.