KARACHI   -   Amid a crackdown against Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leaders and activists, the party organised rallies and demonstrations in many cities and towns of Sindh after Juma prayers in response to its chairman Imran Khan’s call for nationwide protest against his continued detention and unbridled price hike in the country.

According to PTI, the aim of the police crackdown which was started on Thursday night was to detain and thus prevent the leaders and activists from leading the rallies and demonstrations.

It condemned the crackdown as ‘undemocratic’, and demanded immediate release of all its leaders and workers.

In Karachi, police rounded up an unspecified number of PTI activists, including women, and locked them up in different police stations. Some of them were later set free. However, the higher police authorities stayed tight-lipped about the crackdown or arrests.

PTI spokesperson Fouzia Siddiqi, speaking to the media, said: “My home in Central district was also raided by police but I somehow managed to escape arrest. We organised peaceful and symbolic protests at 26 different points in the city in all seven districts … but strong contingents of police had cordoned off almost all these points before the scheduled time of the protests to keep workers away … they harassed the arriving workers and started detaining them”.

She alleged that the crackdown was part of government’s efforts to “sabotage” the peaceful protest. Ms Siddiqi confirmed that all female and some male workers rounded up by police were set free after a few hours but a large number of others were still “missing” and were believed to be in police custody.

Most of the women workers were detained in the Frere police station after they were picked up from one of the protest venues near Teen Talwar.

Talking to reporters outside the police station, Serina Khan, the women wing president of PTI’s Karachi chapter, deplored that a 12-year-old girl accompanying her mother was among those who were detained by the police. She said that party leaders and legal teams were in close coordination for the release of all workers.

In Hyderabad, PTI’s Sindh president Haleem Adil Sheikh led a rally at Hyder Chowk. A strong contingent belonging to the City police station rounded up nine party activists. City SHO Imran Rasheed told the media that they were later released.

PTI’s Hyderabad chapter had originally planned to start the protest rally from Insaf House in Latifabad but heavy police force was deployed outside the party’s office to foil its attempt.

Later, Haleem Sheikh, Noorul Haq Qureshi, Faisal Mughal and other PTI leaders led the rally which culminated outside the local press club. Speaking to the participants, Sheikh said that 37 party workers had been arrested by police so far. He condemned that police had launched a crackdown against party workers in Karachi on Thursday night. He said that he intended to lead a protest rally in Kotri but police did not allow him.

 He said journalists were witness to the fact that such excesses had not been seen even in General Musharraf’s martial law regime. He condemned arrest of PTI activists in Hyderabad and other cities of Sindh.

Sheikh alleged that the PPP and MQM-P wanted to create a rift between the masses and army in order to perpetuate their rule.

In Mirpurkhas, a large number of PTI leaders, activists and supporters held a noisy demonstration at the party’s main office along Hyderabad road. The participants, including women, were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans for immediate release of Imran Khan. They raised slogans against raids on fellow workers’ homes.

The protesters also demanded an end to price spiral and unbearable increase in power and gas tariffs.

Meanwhile, PTI Mirpurkhas division president Aftab Qureshi, in a press statement, strongly condemned the raids, saying that the action was aimed at preventing PTI workers from exercising their democratic right to hold protests.

Rallies and demonstrations were also held in different cities and towns of Shaheed Benazirabad and Sanghar districts on Imran Khan’s call.

Most of the demonstrations were held in front of press clubs.

Two separate rallies were taken out from different areas in Nawabshah. One of them was led by

Advocate Inayat Ali Rind and the other by PTI district chapter’s senior vice president Imamdin Keerio, along with Qazi Nadeem. Both rallies culminated outside the local press club.

The participants kept raising slogans for Imran Khan’s release and against Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz.

Similar protest rallies and demonstrations were held in Shahdadpur, Shahpur Chakar and several other towns of Sanghar district.

The Shahdadpur rally was led by Rao Kashif Ameen which was also joined by workers of Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen.