Bushra Bibi, Ali Amin Gandapur flee from D-Chowk

Bushra Bibi, wife of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan, and KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur fled from Islamabad’s D-Chowk around Tuesday midnight, sources said.

They said the two PTI leaders fled together from the party's much-touted protest point. The sources added nothing could be said about how and where they fled.

The Pakistan Rangers cleared D-Chowk of the protesters. The law enforcers launched the operation after the authorities ruled out talks with the miscreants. 

Earlier, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi told the media that the government would not hold talks with the protesting Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in any case.

Talking to the media after PTI supporters reached D-Chowk in large numbers despite the deployment of heavy contingents of police, Rangers and the army, Naqvi blamed the former first lady Bushra Bibi for all the chaos in the federal capital.

He said that Bushra Bibi was responsible for all the losses caused by the protests. He said that he would give details of all the losses.

Naqvi said these people claimed they were coming for a peaceful protest and everyone saw how peaceful they have been. He said that three Rangers personnel and a policeman were martyred during the protest and PTI’s social media spread the news that they were hit by their own vehicle.

Federal Information Minister Attaullah Tarar also accompanied the interior minister. Tarar said that PTI protesters should not test the State’s patience. He said that those taking the State’s patience as weakness were mistaken.

D-Chowk is a roundabout in Islamabad’s heavily fortified Red Zone.  The junction leads to critical government buildings, including the Parliament House, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Pakistan Secretariat, and the Prime Minister’s Office.

On November 13, Imran issued a ‘final call’ for nationwide protests on November 24, demanding the restoration of the PTI’s electoral mandate, the release of detained party members and the reversal of the 26th Amendment, which he said has strengthened a “dictatorial regime”.

Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister’s adviser on information, said that Imran had agreed to the government’s suggested proposal to move the venue of the party’s protest from D-Chowk to the sub-urban areas but his wife, Bushra Bibi, and the party had refused the suggestion.