Islamabad: As the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl’s (JUI-F) ‘Azadi March’, led by its chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman to call for toppling the incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government reached Islamabad, Prime Minister Imran Khan posed a query to the participants “who they are seeking ‘Azadi’ (freedom) from?”.
While addressing a rally in Gilgit Baltistan, Prime Minister Khan said: “If you ask PPP members they will say things are becoming expensive… PML-N members will not know why they are at the march and if you ask JUI-F they will say Jews are about to take over Islamabad,” Dawn news reported.
Khan also queried as to what Pakistan’s Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari was doing joining hands with a right-wing Islamist party.
“Bilawal, who calls himself a liberal, has also joined the ‘jalsa’. (It seems) the only thing ‘liberal’ about Bilawal is that he is liberally corrupt,” he said.
Khan’s comments on Bhutto-Zardari came hours after the latter addressed the Azadi March participants on Friday morning here where he called the former a “puppet”.
The PPP leader added that the nation was not ready to bow its head before a “selected” Prime Minister and “those who have selected him”.
The marchers, who set out from Karachi on Sunday, left Lahore on Wednesday and culminated its journey on Thursday night in Islamabad.
The development comes after the ruling and the opposition parties reached an agreement to let the anti-government march progress as planned, as long as the protesters do not cross the sensitive “red zone” in Islamabad.
The JUI-F supremo is expected to present his demands at a rally after the Friday prayers, which will also be addressed by opposition leaders.