IN a bid to maintain the law and order situation, the Punjab Government on Thursday banned protests across the province for two days. In a notification, the Provincial Home Department said all kinds of protests, processions and public activities have been banned for two days as Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure has been imposed across Punjab. It added that in view of prevailing law & order situation and threat perception, any kind of protest/procession is likely to provide soft targets to terrorists and miscreants which not only pose serious security threats but is also likely to pose a risk to public peace and order as well as inconvenience to the public at large.
Based on ground realities, the Punjab Government believes the trouble in the province has political motivation as the PTI is exploiting the issue of a rape of a girl in a college to foment an anti-government movement on the pattern of Bangladesh where student unrest forced the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to quit and flee the country. This impression was substantiated by the spread of the student protests to many cities of the province and a call by the PTI leadership to hold protests on Friday to press for the release of its founding Chairperson Imran Khan from Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. No doubt, the alleged rape of a girl is a serious issue and violence erupted when social media reports highlighted the issue. However, an investigation team formed to probe the allegations found no evidence of rape, while the alleged victim and her family have also dismissed the claims as fabricated. In response to the escalating unrest, the provincial government launched a crackdown, with hundreds of students arrested in various cities for blocking roads, injuring security personnel and vandalism. There is an impression in some circles that the issue is being exploited to destabilize the provincial government after failure of the efforts to confront it politically.
We believe that the Punjab Government unnecessarily involved itself in the controversy and took hasty action against students affording opportunity to political opponents to exploit the situation. Prudence demanded a judicial inquiry should have been ordered to probe the alleged incident and bring all aspects of the issue to the fore. Based on the outcome of the judicial investigations, strong actions could have been taken against the culprit as well as against the said college for negligence and lack of vigilance; otherwise those trying to exploit the situation should have been exposed before the people. The strategy adopted by the provincial government lacked wisdom as tempers are already high among teachers and students of the educational institutions due to the questionable move of the province to hand over thirteen thousand schools to NGOs. Teachers across the province were already protesting against the decision but they were pressured into silence due to administrative and disciplinary actions taken against them. Now the issue of the alleged rape of the girl has added fuel to the fire and it is secured political backing as well. We believe the Punjab Government must review its policy of handling the situation and make necessary adjustments based on ground realities. This should be a priority as the province was marching ahead successfully on the road to progress and development due to visionary policies of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz. It was because of scores of people-friendly policies and programmes launched by the provincial government during the last one year that Punjab was being viewed as a model of development. This process should not be allowed to be disrupted through chaotic politics and violent protests.
