Pakistan: Shah Mehmood Qureshi to lead PTI’s long march from Wazirabad on Thursday

ISLAMABAD: Former Prime Minister and Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan, who is recuperating at his Zaman Park residence Lahore after the November 3 attempt on his life in Punjab’s city Wazirabad, has said his party was ready to open dialogue with all the democratic forces for the sake of justice, rule of law and freedom from foreign subservience.

Imran Khan who is likely to be joined by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) stalwarts Aitzaz Ahsan and Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar claimed his “destination was not far away.”

Senator Khokhar a day earlier had announced he was going to tender his resignation as his party leadership was not happy with him for raising voice against “torture” on Senator Azam Khan Swati and “kidnapping” of journalists, etc.

They are not happy with my political positions, he said in his tweet.

Likewise Chaudhry Aitzaz Ahsan who is a veteran politician and served as Minister during the PPP governments also held a meeting with Imran Khan and sought people’s advice whether he should join the PTI or not.

He quoted Imran Khan as saying that it was his 17-year old wish to see him in the PTI folds.

In another tweet, Imran Khan termed the FIR registered by Wazirabad police farcical and hinted at challenging it. “On the issue of the farcical FIR, my lawyers will give my position.

All my life I dreamt of seeing my country as a prospering welfare state and my struggle throughout has been to make this dream a reality for my nation,” he said.

At his Zaman Park residence, the PTI chief in an interaction with journalists changed his previous stance on the appointment of the Army Chief and said the government of Shehbaz Sharif could appoint “whoever they want.”

This is a marked departure from his earlier stance as he had vowed to oppose appointment of a new army chief by “the Sharifs and the Zardaris” and said they were not qualified to make the appointment.

Exactly, seven days after the shooting incident in which Imran Khan and several other party leaders and activists were injured while a man was killed in Wazirabad, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is all set to resume the march from the same place on Thursday.

However, instead of Imran Khan, the party’s vice chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi will be leading the convoy this time.

The change in schedule of the long march came hours after PTI leader Fawad Chaudhry announced that the long march was set to start on Wednesday at 2 pm.

Even before that, PTI had announced that it would commence its long march on Tuesday from the place where Imran Khan was shot at in Wazirabad.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi in a tweet mentioned one of the workers of the PTI Ahmed Chattha who he said had almost lost his life in the Wazirabad incident but was in good health. “Pleased to see him in good health & to discuss strategy for long March, restarting on Thu 10 Nov from the very place of the attack, his constituency,” said Qureshi in his tweet.