Leaders insist Imran’s release remains PTI’s ‘ultimate objective’

FLANKED by local PTI leaders, Salman Akram Raja addresses a press conference in Lahore.—PPI • Salman Akram Raja says critics are ‘hard of hearing’, claims party has emerged as largest social force in the country• Junaid Akbar Khan terms Balochistan ‘guarantor of country’s stability’, assails govt over law and order situation LAHORE / QUETTA: Deflecting criticism that the party has lost its way in the face of government intransigence, leaders of the main opposition PTI maintained that securing Imran Khan’s freedom remained their “ultimate objective”. In separate interactions with the media on Thursday, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja and the party’s KP Chapter President Junaid Akbar Khan pilloried the government and attempted to brush aside the impression that the party had become side-tracked from the founder’s mission. Speaking to reporters at the Lahore Press Club, Raja insisted that it was “a false claim that the PTI has been suppressed” or silenced, saying that critics “have a hearing problem”. On the contrary, he claimed, the party had emerged as “the largest social force” in the country, and would “continue challenging the system of tyranny and oppression”. Raja warned that a boiling point had been reached, adding that “rulers will fall short of bullets” when people take to the streets. Flanked by other PTI leaders, including the party’s Lahore president Mian Akram Usman, Mr Raja said the party had braved political repression, brutal treatment meted out to leaders and workers and the harassment of their families. He insisted that the party leadership has not surrendered and remained in ‘protest mode’. “We will also launch a Jail Bharo Tehreek (court-arrest movement), if needed,” he added. Commenting on the solitary confinement of the party founder and his spouse, Bushra Bibi, he warned that the rulers should “rein in their excesses” as their actions were in violation of all laws at home and abroad. ‘Guarantor of stability’ Meanwhile, speaking to report