LAHORE    -   Finally, the highly anticipated PTI’s long march which is termed as “Azadi March” by chairman PTI Imran Khan has begun here on Friday from Lahore’s famous Liberty Chowk. Imran Khan’s freedom march which was supposed to begin at 11 am from Liberty Chowk and the party leaders and supporters had already start­ed gathering. However, the march started around 3:45 pm after Friday prayers.

PTI workers were holding the party flags. They were dressed in party flag colors and were dancing to the beats of the party anthem being played from huge sound systems. The participants of the march started gathering at the reception camp at Liberty Chowk from 10 am. Families, elderlies, youth and women participated in this long march with great enthusiasm. Apart from Im­ran Khan’s container, there were three more containers in Liberty Chowk, one container was reserved for female party workers, the local leadership of Lahore was present at the second container and the third container belonged to MNA Azam Niazi. Before Imran Khan’s ar­rival, people started arriving at Liberty Chowk in droves. The arrival of people was not very impressive at the time that was given at 11 o’clock, but after the Fri­day prayer, people started turning out at Liberty Chowk in large numbers. Fami­lies and children with them were look­ing excited to welcome Imran Khan with party flags in their hands. Imran Khan, who had given time to start the march at 11 o’clock, arrived at Liberty Chowk four hours behind the schedule. One of the participants of the procession joined the protest on a tractor. The partici­pants of the procession welcomed Imran Khan with a huge roar besides clapping and chanting slogans in his favour. Asad Umer, Shah Mehmood, Ijaz Shah, Ham­mad Azhar and other senior party lead­ers accompanied the ex-premier on the container. Commencing the demonstra­tion with an emotive speech, Imran said that the purpose of Azadi Long March was not to get back into power or for any personal or political interest, but to free the country from the thieves, who have seized power through operation regime change. PDM alliance came to power to waive their corruption cases.

Participants of the procession listened to Imran Khan’s speech in large numbers and responded to his speech by clapping and chanting slogans. Post Imran Khan’s speech, the march proceeded from Liber­ty Chowk to Ferozepur Road, from where it further proceeded to Azadi Chowk. Al­though a large number of party workers and common people heard Imran Khan’s address at Liberty Chowk; but as soon as Imran Khan’s march proceeded towards Ferozepur Road, many families and other participants headed back to their homes. The march started from Liberty Chowk passed through Ferozepur Road, Ichhra, Mozang, Data Darbar and stopped at Azadi Chowk. Rallies from across the city joined the main procession on its route from liberty to Azadi Chowk. The marchers will resume their journey from GT Road towards Islamabad today (Saturday). According to PTI’s plan of action they will try to make people join it’s procession from the cities through which their march will pass. As far as with regard to the rest of Punjab, it has been learnt that the local leaders of the cities and towns of Punjab which are far from the GT Road have been instructed to bring large crowds from their respec­tive constituencies in the form of convoys and reach Islamabad on coming Friday at any cost. In this regard, PTI MNAs and MPAs have been sent back to their con­stituencies to bring as many people to Islamabad as possible.