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PTI makes amendment in ‘Plan C’; ‘shutdown’ rescheduled to Dec 18
* According to new schedule, PTI will observe shutdown strikes in Faisalabad on December 8, Karachi on December 12 and Lahore on December 15By Sardar Sikander Shaheen
ISLAMABAD: Feeling the heat over its decision to “shut down” the entire country, and that too on December 16— a date that coincides with the fall of Dhaka – Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has rescheduled its “plan C” and changed the protests dates, with December 18 being the new countrywide shut-down strikes date.
According to the new schedule, the PTI will now kick-start its politics of agitation to observe shut down strikes in Faisalabad on December 8, in Karachi on December 12, in Lahore on December 15, and countrywide shut-down strikes would be now observed on December 18 instead of December 16. The decision comes just a day after charged PTI Chairman Imran Khan had threatened to jam the whole country on December 16. “On December 4, I will shut down Lahore. On December 8, I will shut down Faisalabad. On December 12, I will shut down Karachi. And on December 16, I will shut down entire Pakistan,” the PTI chief told a large assembly of his charged protesters on Sunday.
PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi confirmed amendments in the protests schedule. “Keeping in view that December 16 coincides with fall of Dhaka and the controversies attached to this episode, we have decided to reschedule the protests dates,” he told a group of reporters on Monday. “The schedule has been slightly amended but the plan is same—to shut down the entire country—starting from the three biggest cities,” Qureshi said referring to December 16, 1971 — the darkest day in Pakistan’s history when East Pakistan was separated from West Pakistan to result in the formation of Bangladesh.
Regarding the protests, the PTI leader said that the business community would not be forced to close their shops and the PTI activists would take to roads and streets. “But if our peaceful protests are responded to with force, there would be violence.” Qureshi said that the government had shown non-seriousness towards PTI’s proposal to form a judicial commission to probe alleged May 2013 general polls rigging while accepting Nawaz Sharif as prime minister and the PTI continuing its sit-in, till the completion of the commission’s probe. “Such a practical suggestion has fallen on deaf ears. Now there shall be serious repercussions for the ruling lot at the centre,” Qureshi said.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk