Tehreek Tahafuz Ayeen-i-Pakistan (TTAP) chief Mahmood Khan Achakzai on Thursday urged political leaders and workers to take to the streets and observe a complete shutter-down and wheel-jam strike, while talking to reporters outside Imran’s Zaman Park residence.
A TTAP delegation, led by Achakzai, departed from Islamabad to Lahore earlier today as part of the opposition’s “street movement” to hold political and social gatherings in the provincial capital.
“Slogans alone will not help release PTI founder Imran Khan from jail, but people rising up on February 8 and bringing the country to a standstill will,” he said.
The TTAP chief – flanked by Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM) chief Allama Raja Nasir Abbas and Opposition Leader in the Punjab Assembly Moeen Riaz Qureshi – was speaking to the media after the arrival of the opposition alliance’s caravan in Lahore.
Achakzai said people from Bajaur to KP should come out on the roads on Febuary 8 and participate in the ‘Aman March’, holding black flags to show that they have come out to end oppression and fascism in the country.
He stressed that those who cannot join the rallies should sit in their streets as a mark of protest.
Acknowledging that the police allowed the caravan to reach Lahore, Achakzai urged them to act in the interest of Pakistan and not to satisfy the “ego of one person or family”.
“Obey orders that are aligned with the law,” he stressed, lamenting that it was wrong to attack people for raising slogans.
Answering a question about the dialogue process, Achakzai said the path to dialogue would open when the country shuts down on Feb 8.
“Whom should we engage in dialogue with? They (federal government) snatched our mandate, the courts snatched the PTI’s election symbol, and sentenced political leaders and workers to 10 to 20 years in jail,” he said.
“We have come to Lahore, urging people to join hands, to end the oppression being unleashed against innocent people in the country,” Achakzai added.
“We are not against [Prime Minister] Shehbaz Sharif or [President] Asif Zardari, but we stand against those political parties and state institutions desecrating the Constitution of Pakistan,” he said.
He also regretted that the party, which raised slogans “roti, kapra aur makan” (bread, clothes and a home) was “busy damaging the Constitution through the 26th and 27th Constitutional Amendments”.
“Now people are not getting food, farmers are not getting the due price of their produce, and investors and youth are running out of the country,” the TTAP chief lamented.
Stating that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had also marched on GT Road and raised the slogan “vote ko izzat do” (respect the vote), Achakzai urged the Sharif family to come out on the roads and raise this slogan again.