Parliament becomes battlefield as police arrest JUI-F MNAs, workers of Ansarul Islam

Islamabad: Islamabad police arrested JUI-F MNAs Maulana Salauddin Ayubi, Maulana Jamal-ud-Din and workers of Ansarul Islam force from Parliament Lodges in an operation on Thursday.

The police launched an action against the workers of Islam-ul-Ansar force as they entered the lodges without permission of the authority concerned.

Islamabad Inspector General of Police Muhammad Ahsan Younus took notice of the group’s presence inside the lodges. According to a tweet posted from the capital police’s official account, he suspended the officials in charge at D-Chowk under whose watch the Ansarul Islam workers had entered the lodges. Subsequently, he personally led the operation.

A large number of opposition parties’ leaders and workers gathered at the parliament and stopped the police mobiles and deflated their tyres.

Interior Minister Shaikh Rasheed said that the government and police had tried hard to convince the JUI-F leaders in Parliament to hand over workers of Islam-ul-Ansar force and negotiated them for five hours, adding they did not cooperate with the police.

“People were hidden inside the lodges,” he said. “We still wanted the matter to be resolved peacefully … but they beat and locked up police officials and did not hand over Ansarul Islam members.”

President Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) Maulana Fazlur Rehman also reached the parliament and appealed to the JUI-F workers to block roads and hold protests across the country.

“Our volunteers got here peacefully,” he said. “They (police) stormed into our lodges and attacked our MNA.”

The Maulana urged his party’s workers to reach Islamabad, adding that if they were not able to come to the capital so they must protest in their cities and paralyze the whole country. He also offered his arrest. Fazl warned the government that it would be replied to in the same coin.

Rehman demanded immediate release of his party’s workers and volunteers, also demanding an apology from the authorities.

“We demand that our MNAs and others be released and that they apologise,” he said. “We have declared war and will not forgive them for this terrorism.”

Following Maulana Rehman’s call, JUI-F’s Sindh chapter announced that it was staging sit-in protests in Jacobabad and Sukkur as well as Karachi’s Super Highway, Hub River Road and National Highway. A sit-in was also staged at Hyderabad Toll Plaza and the road was blocked for traffic.

Talking to the media, PML-N leaders Ayaz Sadiq and Khawaja Asif strongly condemned the government and police’s action, adding that the police violated the sanctity of the parliament. They further said that the government had to be accountable for all its misdeeds.

Later, the interior minister addressed a press conference and said the police had arrested 19 members of a “private militia”, adding that the two JUI-F MNAs “were sitting in the police station” of their own will and “for the popularity of their company”.

The minister said that all private militias were dissolved in 2019 and now no one was allowed to keep such a force anymore.

“We will also stop those who want to come out on the roads,” he warned.

Referring to Rehman urging his workers to take to the streets, Rashid said: “Please don’t take the law into your hands as otherwise action would be taken.”