LAHORE: Members of the Progressive Youth Alliance and Red Workers Front staged a demonstration outside the Lahore Press Club on Monday against abductions of their seven office bearers from Karachi Railway Station. Two of them, Zainul Abidin and Aftab Ashraf, were from PYA Lahore chapter and have been actively involved in Left wing politics. Others are RWF Kashmir Organiser Gulbaz Khan, RWF Quetta member Karim Parhar, PYA Islamabad Organiser Umar Riaz, PYA Karachi Organiser Atta Afridi and PYA Balochistan Organiser Bilawal Baloch. Around dozens of PYA members gathered outside Lahore Press Club holding placards and banners inscribed with slogans ‘Release Comrades’ and ‘PYA comrades abducted’. PYA member Adeel Zaidi told The Nation that seven members of PYA had participated in the Karachi Press Club protest in a show of solidarity with Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement. The Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement held a public meeting in Lahore and thousands of Pashtun students from various universities of the country attended it. They demanded a truth and reconciliation commission on extra judicial killings and missing persons. “After the protest they had planned to reach Lahore by a 7pm train. As they arrived at the railway station, law enforcement agencies took all of them to an unknown place,” Zaidi said. –Staff Reporter
“We are concerned at abduction of political activists. It is a matter of concern that this kind of rule of law is prevailing in our country. We are not being heard; we are being silenced,” he said.
“They all are innocent people who want to see Pakistan a prosperous country,” Zaidi said.
“We will raise our voice through more protests and will reach international forums as well,” Zaidi sai