TTAP rejects PTI claims of no prior notice for 10,000-strong demonstration outside Adiala jail

ISLAMABAD: While the PTI leadership distanced itself from the call to gather 10,000 people outside Adiala jail on Tuesday, claiming that National Assembly Opposition Leader Mahmood Khan Achakzai did not inform them, the TTAP spokesperson rejected the claim. PTI founder Imran Khan’s sister Aleema Khan claimed a day earlier that she was approached by Achakzai and told that 10,000 people could gather outside Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail — where the party founder is incarcerated — if a time was provided. “It had been decided that we will hold a sit-in from 3pm–7pm,” she said. However, PTI Parliamentary Leader in the National Assembly Shahid Khattak, talking to the media on the same day, rejected the suggestion that such an arrangement had been made. “Mahmood Khan Achakzai did not inform us that 10,000 persons had to be gathered; we could have gathered them. Even I could have brought 200 people,” he said. Khattak added that Achakzai should also have informed the party about the planned gathering so that it could mobilise people. On Wednesday, TTAP spokesperson Akhunzada Hussain Yousafzai rejected Khattak’s claims about planned protests outside the prison. “PTI leaders and members had repeatedly requested Opposition Leader Mahmood Khan Achakzai to announce a specific date and time for a protest or sit-in outside Adiala jail. They argued that a fixed schedule would enable them to mobilise and bring a large number of supporters to the venue,” he claimed in a statement. He further claimed that Achakzai conveyed the proposal to Aleema, and she agreed to the suggestion of staging a protest outside Adiala jail at a predetermined time. “During a joint parliamentary meeting of the Senate and the National Assembly held at Parliament House on June 11, which was attended by PTI’s parliamentary leadership, including Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan and Parliamentary Leader in the National Assembly Shahid Khattak, participants were informed that Aleema Khan had endorsed the proposal for