Decapitating PTI?
Rashed Rahman
On July 31, 2025, an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Faisalabad sentenced over a 100 leaders and workers of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) to jail terms of up to 10 years in connection with the May 9, 2023 riots. On that day, PTI supporters protesting the arrest of their leader Imran Khan, staged violent protests throughout the country, vandalising military installations, state-owned buildings and the Lahore Corps Commander’s residence. In the aftermath of these events, thousands of protestors, including party leaders, were arrested. The Faisalabad ATC ordered the arrest of all those convicted who were not present in the court. These sentences follow a military court’s sentencing on December 21 and 26, 2024 of over 50 PTI leaders and activists for up to 10 years for their involvement in the same May 9 riots. The ATCs have been hearing the May 9 related cases daily to meet a deadline set by the Supreme Court (SC) for the conclusion of the trials by August 2025. So should we read the Faisalabad ATC’s extra speed in pronouncing sentence on over 100 leaders and workers of the PTI purely the result of the SC’s deadline? That may be too naïve.
Consider. The PTI, despite the ‘decapitation’ of a considerable weight of its leadership and activists, has announced plans to hold a countrywide protest movement today, August 5, 2025 to demand the release of Imran Khan amongst other demands to “restore genuine democracy”, reverse the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP’s) disqualification of ATC-convicted PTI parliamentarians without waiting for their appeals to be heard, and, despite the fact that all those sentenced but not in prison have gone ‘underground’, use today’s (August 5, 2025) National Assembly session called by President Asif Zardari to stage strong protests in the House against perceived and actual repression let loose against the PTI. It may well be, therefore, that the Faisalabad ATC’s ‘haste’ had something to do with an effort to stymie, if not quell, the PTI’s protest plans. This, in addition to the PTI’s own difficulties if their ‘underground’ leaders and cadres emerge to stage the protests, risking thereby arrest and lengthy incarceration. It remains to be seen therefore, how the protests play out. Peaceful protest declamations by the PTI notwithstanding, the day could prove extremely violent.
On the eve of the countrywide protest drive, Imran Khan has reportedly managed to send out a message to his followers; his message consists of two components. The first is his reiteration of the policy he has long advocated and adhered to, including when he was in power, to refrain from any further military operations in the tribal areas against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and instead attempt to negotiate with them. While this argument sounds seductive, especially given the desire and actual practice of some tribal elders of carrying on negotiations with the TTP for a ceasefire, it was tried in the past but made shipwreck on the TTP’s violation of every agreement for ceasefires and peace. When Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ali Amin Gandapur reminds us that we have so far conducted 21 military operations that did not succeed, what he significantly omits is the reasons why these operations did not succeed. In a nutshell, it was because the TTP went back to terrorism after every such ‘deal’. The tribal elders’ hopes notwithstanding, there is no evidence that the TTP has changed its colours and will not repeat the breaking of any ceasefire or peace agreement. So one may be forgiven for advising Imran Khan not to waste the few and far between opportunities to get his messages out on a demonstrably failed strategy.
The second part of Imran Khan’s message concerns the protest drive. He condemns (justly, many would say) the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as proxies of the establishment. The problem though is that many others have not forgotten that Imran Khan and the PTI came to power in 1918 with the help and backing of the same establishment, and would probably still be enjoying the perks and privileges of power instead of cooling their heels in less salubrious surroundings if they had not eventually fallen out with their mentors.
What this recalled truth implies is that the people of Pakistan are presented with a devil’s bargain in choosing between present (and incumbent) establishment proxies and (past) would-be proxies. In fact, the people have been left with no (or only bad) choices since the political class entire has sold them out to the real powers-that-be in Pakistan. This Hobson’s choice is perhaps the major reason for the disillusionment, despair and depression of the vast majority, especially the youth, whose pure idealism has been destroyed by the cynical betrayal of their hopes and dreams by the political class as a whole, composed, it may be noted in passing, of the elite that has gripped a suffering people by their throats.
rashed-rahman.blogspot.com
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