Daily Times

Amid the government efforts to make the planned opposition rally a failure, the Lahore High Court on Friday suspended the detention orders issued against nine PML-N workers.

The move came as Justice Chaudhry Mushtaq Ahmed heard a petition filed by Aftab Akbar and others who were affected by their detention ordered by the Lahore deputy commissioner. It was argued in the petition that cases were being registered and political activists detained to sabotage the PDM rally scheduled for December 13 in Lahore. Seeking a court intervention to declare the orders null and void, the counsel argued that his clients were not nominated in any previous cases.

On Thursday, PML-N Secretary-General Ahsan Iqbal told reporters that the time had come to send Imran Khan home.

Islamabad would be next destination for the PDM after which the government was going to be washed away, he maintained. Earlier, the PML-N leaders warned the government against creating hurdles in organising the rally, saying the people of Lahore knew how to remove the hurdles.

In this connection, PML-N leader Khawaja Saad Rafique said the country would experience an irreparable loss if the decision of vote was not respected.

Addressing party workers in Lahore as part of a series of events being held to mobilise public for the December 13 PDM rally, Saad said “this democracy is a fraud” and said that media had be placed in shackles.

“Our votes were stolen,” he said. “People voted for Nawaz Sharif, the result was given in favour of Imran Khan. Journalists were kidnapped, restriction was imposed on freedom of expression and pressure was exerted on judges, Saad told the charged crowd and questioned, “Is it democracy?”

He stressed that the verdict of vote would have to be accepted to end the current crisis and repeated the demand for holding free and fair elections.

The PML-N leader also noted that the people of Pakistan won’t get their rights if Punjab did not wake up.