What is in the public domain is that the maulana has assembled a huge enough crowd to warrant serious attention. Someone or the other will have to engage with him as committed cadres in tens of thousands are not going to disperse even by the use of force.
“In fact, any use of force would be utterly foolish as it would exacerbate rather than defuse the crisis. For now at least, Maulana Fazlur Rehman seems to be bloody-minded and not willing to budge an inch.
At the same time, he is keeping his cards close to his chest including any strategy that has been planned in case he or other leaders central to the protest are arrested.”\
Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry says the failure of the “halwa march” is the success of Pakistan.
In a post shared on Twitter, Chaudhry adds: “The segment carrying out this march is the one that opposed the creation of Pakistan.
“Their elders were Quaid-i-Azam [Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s] opposition. Today they have become [Prime Minister] Imran Khan’s opposition. The defeat of this segment is the key to the future of Pakistan and hopefully this matter is reaching towards its end.”
Due to the prevailing uncertainty in the federal capital, the interior ministry has asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to provide 5,000 additional police personnel to the administration of Islamabad Capital Territory.
Through an official communiqué on Saturday, the interior ministry asked the chief secretary of the province to approve provision of another 5,000 personnel of the KP police along with complete command structure and anti-riot gear to the administration of the federal territory.
Sources say the provincial government had already provided around 3,000 police personnel to the federal government for deployment in Islamabad.
