LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami’s sit-in at Faisal Chowk on Lahore’s Mall Road entered its 29th day on Saturday with the artery still closed to traffic, even as the party announced an Islamabad march for September 20 and the Islamabad High Court issued a written order in the case concerning Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s planned September 27 protest and long march.
At the protest site, empty chairs and a handful of workers were visible, but the political consequences of the sit-in have outlasted the crowd.
Because of the sit-in, Mall Road remains closed to traffic from Faisal Chowk to Regal Chowk, leaving citizens and traders facing difficulties. The stretch is one of Lahore’s most commercially sensitive corridors, hosting government offices, courts, schools, bookshops and retail markets, and month-long closures reroute tens of thousands of daily commuters onto already congested parallel roads.
Jamaat-e-Islami Ameer Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman has given a call for an Islamabad march on September 20, which the party has linked to the petroleum levy.
The third round of talks between the government and Jamaat-e-Islami negotiation committees will be held on Monday.
Separately, the larger bench of the Islamabad High Court issued a two-page written order in the case against PTI’s September 27 protest and long march.
Chief Justice Sarfraz Dogar, Justice Azam Khan and Justice Muhammad Asif issued the written order.
The order stated that the arguments of the advocates general of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan have been completed. The Chief Secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa gave an undertaking that government resources will not be used in any political gathering.
According to the order, the next hearing in the case will be held on Monday, September 14, at 10am.
The court has sought affidavits from the Chief Secretary and the Inspector General of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at the next hearing. According to the order, the Advocate General Islamabad and the Prosecutor General Islamabad will make their arguments at the next hearing, while the chief secretaries and inspectors general of the other provinces are not required to attend.
The court proceedings run alongside reports that several PTI leaders face warrant action.
The two announcements place September’s political calendar on a collision course with the capital’s administrative machinery. Islamabad has historically responded to march announcements with container blockades on the Srinagar Highway and Faizabad approaches, GT Road closures and mobile internet restrictions — measures that impose costs on commerce and on citizens with no involvement in either movement.
The question of provincial government resources being deployed for a party’s political mobilisation, which the Islamabad High Court has now taken up directly through undertakings and affidavits, has been a recurring dispute since PTI returned to power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The undertaking recorded from the KP chief secretary, and the affidavits now sought from both the chief secretary and the provincial police chief, effectively transfer personal accountability for that question onto the two most senior officers in the province.
For Lahore, the immediate issue remains Mall Road. Traders’ bodies along the corridor have repeatedly said that a month of restricted access has cut footfall sharply, and the outcome of Monday’s third round of government-Jamaat-e-Islami talks will determine whether the artery reopens before the party’s Islamabad march on September 20.
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