PESHAWAR: As Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf workers continued to demonstrate against suspected election tampering on Wednesday, commuters and drivers encountered difficulty due to the shutdown of roads in the provincial capital.
On the sixth day of their protest, a sizable contingent of PTI employees set up sit-ins on various highways. They had previously closed the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway and Charsadda Road for three days each.
PTI activists held sit-ins on Wednesday in Hayatabad’s Phase-III Chowk, outside the Peshawar Press Club, and on Grand Trunk Road close to the Pir Zakori Bridge.
For several hours, thousands of cars and passengers were left stuck due to road blockades. Since the protestors’ party is about to retake power in the province, the district administration and police were nowhere to be seen.
Police and district administration don’t seem eager to deal with demonstrators.
The demonstrators carried placards accusing the Pakistani Election Commission and returning staff of manipulating the results of one National Assembly seat and eight provincial assembly seats.
Ex minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra led the demonstrators in Hayatabad, while Kamran Bangash oversaw the demonstrations outside the Peshawar Press Club and at Pir Zakori Brige. Mr. Jhagra ran for office from Hayatabad, whereas Mr. Bangash ran from city areas.
PK-72, PK-73, PK-74, PK-75, PK-78, PK-79, PK-80, PK-82, and NA-20 are among the eight provincial assembly seats and one national assembly seat for which they claimed returning authorities manipulated the results against PTI candidates.
They declared that they would not stop protesting until the vote recorded in Form-45 was used to make a decision. According to their allegations, the returning officers manipulated the results and gave their winning tickets to the individuals who came in third and fourth place on Form-45.
Peshawarites suffered greatly as a result of the hours-long traffic jams on practically all of the provincial capitals’ roadways. To get to their destinations, some of the drivers took detours through the neighboring communities.
According to the reporter from Lakki Marwat, the PTI workers’ and supporters’ protest in Bannu reached its sixth day on Wednesday. The demonstrators proceeded with their sit-ins at four separate locations, obstructing major roads and halting traffic.
Both commuters and haulers were inconvenienced by the road closures. The district’s colleges and universities were forced to close as a result of the protest marches.
Only ambulances carrying critically ill patients to hospitals were permitted to pass through the protesters’ barricaded areas. To prevent any loss or damage, many transporters refrained from operating their cars on public highways. Regular living and commercial operations were severely disrupted by the ongoing protests against the poll results.
Malik Shah Mohammad, a former provincial minister, and other PTI officials visited the protest locations and spoke with the accused employees.
They claimed that the election results were manipulated at the request of former chief minister Akram Durrani, who wanted to announce himself the winner in PK-102 and JUI-F candidate Adnan Khan in PK-101.
They asserted, “There are differences in the votes between the Form-45 our polling agents received at polling places and those delivered to returning officers by presiding officers.” They claimed that the poll results were manipulated to make the PTI-backed candidates’ victory appear to be a loss.
They claimed that two provincial assembly constituencies’ Form-45 had been altered in the returning officers’ offices. They declared that they would not put up with their political rivals stealing their party’s mandate and that they would not accept it.
SOURCE: DAWN NEWS
