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.
Just read Ayaz Amir’s article that AUK briefly quoted above. God bless him for expressing my sentiments. As many on this blog know I have no meat for MQM or Altaf Hussain but I applaud MQM for “giving jamaat islami a taste of its own medicine in Karachi and Hyderabad.” When history is written this is one good thing that can not be taken away from MQM. I quote a more detailed portion from Ayaz’ article below. Worth reading.
“”This brings me to Imran Khan
I have heard Imran Khan is sending text messages from jail.Please post them here would be nice to hear what he has to say.
YEAH I AGREE IMRAN KHAN WILL BECOME LEFTIST NOW AND HAVE SOME UNDERSTANDING WITH OTHER LEFTIST PARTIES AND STUDENT UNIONS SOON.
jamaat is on the payroll of army! and IJT is one hell of a munafiq party that i have ever seen! no politics but just using the islam name for the sake of dirty game! thats y even maulana muadudis son even didnt follow him! they talk abt islam and act against it.they called imran and ameer ul azeem,staged a pathetic politics in which they turned their own man in and imran khan to police with a lame excusethat they actin selfish for no politics in students! o contrary their nazims asks all their leadership to come when they are elected!
what a bunch of lamers IJT is! their credibilty now in PU is bleak! imran is popular among the youth for his strong nature and vision! hes much more than the maududi who just ran a movement against bhutto;s ouster as he drank wine lol and was makin a constitution that they percieved was unislamic! and today siding mush another drunk geek with more enlightenment that bhutto cant even think off! way to go jamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat e unislami and hats of to Islami Jagga Talaba!
whole LOTA love (November 15th, 2007 1:08 am) asks: “How would Imran react if someone from outside the university staged a protest against the UK government at BRADFORD university?”
Protests happen frequently at all universities in the UK & the USA. Here are two brief excerpts from the web that might answer your question better:
Exhibition recalls four days of student protest that shook the University
Thirty years ago the administration of the University of Leeds was brought to a standstill when hundreds of students staged a four-day sit-in at the Parkinson Building. The era of student protest had arrived in Leeds with a vengeance. Playing a central role in the occupation was the then President of the Students