In an uncivilized turn of events, the chief of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Imran Khan was manhandled at the Punjab University Campus today. He was later arrested by the police. A group of students kept him detained on the campus and later turned him over to the police. According to Dawn’s Report:
Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chairman Imran Khan was arrested from outside the Punjab University’s new campus on Wednesday after he had been manhandled and detained in the campus allegedly by activists of the Islami Jamiat Talaba. Imran Khan had gone to the university at the invitation of a joint action committee of students.
The visit had been approved by Qazi Hussain Ahmed, chief of Jamaat-i-Islami, to which the IJT is affiliated. On his arrival at the campus, the PTI chief was confronted reportedly by a group of IJT activists who kicked him around and punched him. They took him to a room in the Centre for High Energy Physics and detained him there for about 45 minutes.
This is an interesting (and sad) turn of events. Imran Khan’s party and the mother party of IJT are both partners in APDM. Imran and Qazi have been seen together in many media photo shoots for the past year or so. Will today’s action by IJT guys will cause long term bad-blood between the two parties? It is left to be seen.
We strongly believe that inspite of political differences, no person deserves physical bashing and humiliation as was met out to Imran. Political differences should never be taken to such extreme where people use force to get their point across. It is wrong. Shame on those who manhandled him. I was recently reading an article on political bashing in the Wall Street Journal. It had a punch line which just kept resonating with me. It read:
Our politics suffer when passions overcome reason and vitriol becomes virtue.
Details on Imran’s manhandling can be read here, here, here and here.
I was really disapponited when i heared the news. Shame of Jamaat student. Is Islam teach you to harassor bully some one like that.
-I do think that there is a potential in Mr. Imran Khan being nominated The Prize Alfred Nobel.(peace-prize)
Peace
-and let peace blossom
in the State of Peace-willing
people of PAKistan.
1. Rumours of a change in Pakistan by the 20th of Nov.
2. Musharraf is going on a visit to Saudi Arabia. Some say that there is a lot of packing going on in the army house and that he is going for good and won’t be returning. (I am told that it is treason to spread this in Pakistan)
3. There are rumours that Bush called Mush on saturday and told him that he would not be welcome in the US. According to some, this may be behind Musharraf’s perspiration during the news conference the other day.
On the funnier side, today, Mush issued an amendment to the PCO to give authority to the President to lift the Emergency. The man has really lost it. :)
The senate chairperson Muhammad Mian Sumro is being mentioned as the leading candidate for the care taker PM.
It is very hard to get rid of a dictator when students beat up political leader.
The person who deserve to be arrested or beaten is mushy dog but alas wat a country ,he is still ruling in pakistan …shame for Pakistanis.
why you guys are changing topic. topic here is Imran. So finally Mr “Chi” has been arrested :)
To me it seems more like a humorous episode. The reality is student movement has nothing to do with Imran’s appeal. Somehow this joker got the idea that students are on Campus waiting for Imran Khan.
I am really not a fan of a theocratic state such as Iran or Taliban Afghanistan, but thats what Iqbal had to say:
Juda hou dein siyasat sei tou reh jaati hai changeizi
Musharraf by Ann Coulter
Musharraf has declared emergency rule in Pakistan, shut down the media and sent Supreme Court justices home. What’s not to like about a guy who orders policemen to beat up lawyers? The entire history of Pakistan is this: There are lots of crazy people living there, they have nuclear weapons, and any Pakistani leader who prevents the crazies from getting the nukes is George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison all rolled into one. We didn’t hear much about Musharraf until the last few weeks. Musharraf has been a crucial ally of ours since Sept. 12, 2001. His loyal friendship to the United States while governing a country that is loyal to al-Qaida might prove dispiriting to the terrorists. So, until recently, the media mostly confined stories about Musharraf to page A-18. Weeks later, The New York Times editorial page called on “masses of Pakistanis” to participate in “peaceful demonstrations” against Musharraf, which would be like calling on masses of Pakistanis to engage in daily bathing (The New York Times editorial page being the most effective way to communicate with the Pakistani masses). Most of the editorial was a mash note to that troublesome woman Benazir Bhutto for demanding democracy in the land of the deranged. Media darling Bhutto returned to Pakistan after fleeing the country following her conviction for corruption as prime minister. Her conviction was later overturned by the corrupt Pakistani Supreme Court, leaving me to ponder, which is worse: being convicted of corruption in a Pakistani court or being exonerated of corruption in a Pakistani court? She was again convicted in a Swiss court of money laundering. The media adore Bhutto because she went to Harvard and Oxford, which I consider two more strikes against her. A degree from Harvard is prima facie evidence that she’s on the side of the terrorists. I note that Bhutto demonstrates her own deep commitment to democracy by giving herself the title “chairperson for life” of the Pakistan Peoples Party. You wouldn’t know it to read the headlines, but Musharraf has not staged a military coup. In fact, he was re-elected easily just weeks ago under Pakistan’s own parliamentary system. But the Pakistani Supreme Court, like our own Supreme Court, believes it is above the president and refused to acknowledge Musharraf’s election on the grounds that he is disqualified because he is still wearing a military uniform. That’s when Musharraf sent them home. How might popular rule turn out in Pakistan? As Saul Bellow rhetorically said of multiculturalism, “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?” Pakistan is a country where local Islamic courts order women to be raped as punishment for the crimes of their male relatives. Among the Islamists’ bill of particulars against Musharraf is the fact that he has promoted the Women’s Protection Bill, which would punish rape, rather than using it as a device for social control. Pakistan doesn’t need Adlai Stevenson right now. It needs Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to impose military rule and drag a country of Islamic savages into the 19th century, as Ataturk did in Turkey. Pakistan’s Ataturk is Gen. Musharraf.