Punjab Home Minister Hashim Dogar said on Wednesday that the provincial government will not be a part of Imran Khan’s long march as it is a political issue.
If Imran Khan announced the long march, the Punjab government will not be a part of it. We will not facilitate the participants of the long march but security will be provided,” the minister said while talking to a journalist in Lahore.
The statement by the Punjab Home Minister came after PTI Chairman Imran Khan directed his party officials to ensure the gathering of thousands of workers in Islamabad during the “Azadi March”.
Sources told JEE News that Khan’s instructions came during a meeting with several district heads of Punjab, including Gujranwala, Narowal, Hafizabad, Mandi Bahauddin and Gujarat.
The PTI chairman told the local leaders that 6,000 workers came from Gujranwala to the capital, the same number from Sialkot and Gujarat, 5,000 from Mandi Bahauddin and 4,000 from Hafizabad and Narowal.
The Punjab Home Minister called Imran Khan’s long march a “political issue” and added that the provincial government will not use the state machinery for it.
Interestingly, the ruling coalition at the Center has also asked the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments to avoid becoming “instruments” to pave the way for chaos in the country.
Reacting to the issue of alleged torture of PTI leader Shehbaz Gul while in police custody, Dogar said: “I still stand by my stand that he was not tortured. The matter is in the court, let’s see what happens.
