Pakistan Ex-Minister Fawad Chaudhry Resigns From PTI

International

oi-Madhuri Adnal

In another major blow to Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Fawad Chaudhry has announced parting ways with the party.

Taking to micro-blogging platform, he wrote,”My earlier statement where I unequivocally condemned 9th May incidents, I have decided to take a break from politics, therefore, I have resigned from party position and parting ways from Imran Khan.”

Chaudhry’s resignation came a day after former minister for human rights Shireen Mazari quit 70-year-old Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and condemned the actions of the former prime minister’s supporters who attacked and torched sensitive defence installations across Pakistan on May 9.

Chaudhary served as the Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting and the minister for science and technology during his government. He was the PTI’s senior vice president and the party spokesman.

Mazari, 72, announced her resignation and retirement from active politics after she was released following her arrest for the fourth time since May 12 when she was picked from her residence by police and sent to jail in connection with the violence on May 9. She served as the minister for human rights from 2018 to 2022, under Khan’s regime.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said the government is mulling a possible ban on Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party following the attacks by his supporters on military installations after the former prime minister’s arrest.

On May 9, violent protests erupted after the arrest of 70-year-old Khan by paramilitary Rangers. His party workers vandalised a dozen military installations, including the Lahore Corps Commander house, Mianwali airbase and the ISI building in Faisalabad. The Army headquarters in Rawalpindi was also attacked by the mob for the first time. Police put the death toll in violent clashes to 10.

However, PTI leader Barrister Ali Zafar said that the party would challenge the ban in the court as a political party cannot be banned. He told the media that when a ban was imposed on the Jamaat-i-Islami in the 1960s, it was set aside by then-chief justice Alvin Robert Cornelius.