Shops in Islamabad, Lahore remain open, shut in Quetta

TTAP’s strike call over 2024 ‘rigging’

ISLAMABAD: Most of the markets in Lahore and Islamabad were open on Sunday, despite a strike call by opposition alliance Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayin-i-Pakistan (TTAP) in protest of alleged discrepancies in the 2024 general elections.

A partial shutdown was observed in Peshawar, while a complete shutdown strike was reported in Quetta. In Lahore, all major markets remained closed, primarily due to Sunday and Basant day.

The strike ended in Peshawar after 5pm.

The PTI — a part of the TTAP — earlier also announced its plan to stage nationwide protests today to mark the second anniversary of the Feb 8, 2024, general elections, which it alleges were marred by rigging.

The party has also announced it will observe a mourning day following Friday’s suicide bombing at an imambargah in Islamabad that claimed at least 36 lives.

In a statement on X, PTI Secretary General Salman Akram Raja asserted that a strike was a “documented Constitutional method to express irritation with the system”.

He said the public could express their “hatred towards lies and oppression from their doorsteps” in this way. “Shop closed, vehicle jammed. No tyrant can compare to 250 million. Today is the day of a strike.

“It is a day of mourning over the stolen vote and terrorism in Balochistan and Islamabad,” he added.

Recalling the Feb 8, 2024 elections, Raja termed it a “historic moment of the Pakistani nation’s democratic expression”. He highlighted that the people voted for PTI in support of its founder, Imran Khan despite “months-long oppression and snatching the electoral symbol”.

He further said, “On that dark evening, the wolves who looted the votes of those young people and of the entire nation across the country, they negated the very existence of millions of human beings.”

The TTAP and PTI shared purported visuals of shops shut in various cities, including KP’s Peshawar, Abbottabad, Balakot, Haripur, Bajaur, Upper Chitral and Lakki Marwat; Sindh’s Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Badin and Nawabshah; Punjab’s Mandi Bahauddin, Mianwali, Muzaffargarh; and Balochistan’s Quetta, Chaman, Zhob, and Kuchlak.

It also posted videos showing PTI workers and supporters gathered in KP’s Kohat, as well as Balochistan’s Nasirabad, Qila Saifullah, Chaman and Pishin. Staff Report