PTI says leaders were expelled from Gilgit-Baltistan ahead of June 7 vote

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf said on Tuesday that four of its senior leaders, including party Secretary General Salman Akram Raja, were stopped from entering Gilgit-Baltistan and escorted out of the region, while local party figures who had come to receive them were detained.

General elections in Gilgit-Baltistan are due to be held on Sunday, June 7, after a four-month postponement that was attributed to severe winter conditions. PTI leaders said the party was being prevented from campaigning ahead of the polls.

In a post on X, Raja said he, along with Shaukat Basra, Naeem Panjutha and Zaheer Babar, was stopped by police in the jurisdiction of Jal Police Station after entering Gilgit-Baltistan. He said the officials did not allow them to proceed and later took them out of the province. Raja also said members of the Insaf Student Federation who were with them were surrounded by police vehicles.

Speaking to Dawn, Raja said the party leaders had travelled by road because PTI leader and former National Assembly speaker Asad Qaiser had earlier not been allowed to travel by air. He also said PTI lawmaker Junaid Akbar had similarly been expelled from the region. According to Raja, police stopped them in the area of Jal police station in Diamer district and told them they had orders not to let them continue. He said police personnel accompanied the group until Babusar Top before turning back.

Raja described the action as a restriction on the party’s constitutional right to movement and political activity. He said the steps being taken would not silence public opinion or democratic aspirations and asserted that public support remained with jailed former prime minister Imran Khan.

Shaukat Basra told Dawn that PTI was being denied a level playing field in the election campaign. He said the government was concerned by what he described as public support for PTI in Gilgit-Baltistan and alleged that local leaders and Insaf Student Federation workers who came to welcome the party delegation were arrested by police.

PTI alleges repeat of 2024 election restrictions

PTI Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram condemned the incident and said the party leadership had again been blocked from political activity in a manner similar to the restrictions it says it faced before and during the February 8, 2024 general elections.

According to Akram, police had been given lists and were identifying and stopping PTI-linked individuals from entering Gilgit-Baltistan. He said the action amounted to a violation of the Constitution and democratic norms. He also alleged that the use of no-objection certificate requirements was being deployed as part of a broader administrative campaign similar to what PTI says its candidates and workers encountered across the country during the last general election.

Akram further said that ruling parties, especially the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples Party, were receiving official backing for their public meetings, while PTI was facing restrictions.

Other parties intensify campaign in GB

The PTI allegations came as senior leaders from other major parties stepped up campaigning in Gilgit-Baltistan. Earlier in the day, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and PML-N President Nawaz Sharif addressed public rallies in the region.

Bilawal said Gilgit-Baltistan should receive the same rights and constitutional protections available to the provinces under the 18th Amendment. Nawaz, addressing a gathering in Gilgit, remarked that he was speaking to the people there after many years and said he would meet Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to seek expansion of the airport so that commercial jets could operate there. He also expressed concern over what he described as a lack of development in the region.