For a month, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf told its workers that September 27 would be the day. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi carried the message into Sindh and then onto the streets of Lahore. He claimed that even 100,000 police or soldiers could not stop four million people.
Supporters were told to get ready, and they did. Then, on Friday, with the date almost here, the party’s political committee postponed the march. It will now leave Peshawar on October 4.
A postponement is not a crime. But the PTI’s workers are owed an honest question. Is the party playing with its people, or is it really doing something for its leader?
This retreat did not come out of nowhere. Days before the decision, PTI leaders from Punjab reportedly urged the leadership to delay the march. They said preparations were inadequate and that they had not been consulted before it was announced.
After the postponement, a senior party figure claimed the PTI had already achieved its aim. The state, he said, had shut down the capital and spent hundreds of millions on security.
If exhausting the state was the goal, workers deserved to hear that a month ago. Instead they were told this was a decisive march for Imran Khan’s release. People who arranged transport, took leave from work and faced police raids in their neighbourhoods were not signing up for a tactical feint.
The government side was quick to mock the retreat. On the day of the postponement, Punjab Information Minister Azma Bokhari shared three satirical posters, each showing Sohail Afridi looking dejected.
In the first, Islamabad breathes a sigh of relief as the “Intishar March” is postponed. Intishar means chaos, and it is the government’s label for the PTI march. In the second, Islamabad asks whether the march is coming, is told “not yet,” and decides to get some rest too. In the third, Mr Afridi asks workers, “Freedom or death?” and they reply, “Let it go, brother.”
Political satire is part of any democracy, and the PTI will call this government gloating. But the joke landed because it touched a nerve. A party that promises its workers a decisive battle and then postpones it hands its opponents the punchline.
We have seen this before. Under former Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, the PTI’s protest campaigns followed a familiar script. Workers heard the same promise every time, such as we are doing this to save our leader. Nothing changed for the leader. Much changed for the workers.
In October 2024, Mr Gandapur led a convoy towards Islamabad and then vanished for about a day. He resurfaced in Peshawar at the provincial assembly.
The November 2024 march reached D-Chowk and ended in a night-time crackdown. More than 4,000 people were arrested, and the number killed is still disputed. Later, a party colleague accused Mr Gandapur in a meeting of having abandoned workers at D-Chowk.
Lives were lost, families were left searching jails, and ordinary workers faced the state’s full response. Imran Khan remained in Adiala Jail.
A second pattern is harder to ignore. The PTI has repeatedly chosen protest dates that coincide with major foreign visits.
The October 2024 D-Chowk protest was set for the eve of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, then called off at the last minute. The November 2024 march began a day before Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko arrived on an official visit. Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said publicly at the time that this was a recurring pattern.
What was the aim? If it was to embarrass the state before its guests, that is not a struggle for one man’s release. It is a gamble with Pakistan’s reputation, and every citizen pays for it, including the PTI’s own supporters.
The state has been consistent. It has told the PTI to stay away from the capital. Every time, the PTI has answered by marching on it in full force.
This time the state’s preparations were unprecedented. Section 144 across Islamabad, Rangers deployed until October 5, and requests to jam mobile internet around Rawalpindi and Attock. The Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway M-1 and the GT Road at Attock Khurd are all sealed. Several PTI leaders were detained in Punjab and Islamabad days ahead of the march.
Most striking of all, Imran Khan’s sisters were detained. Aleema Khan, Dr Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi were each ordered held for 30 days under the Punjab Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) Ordinance, 1960. The orders called them a threat to public safety and public order.
The PTI insists its long march is peaceful and entirely for its leader. Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan has repeated that the party never closed the door to dialogue. That position should be taken at face value.
But a party that keeps promising a march it cannot deliver owes its workers some realism. Why do it again and again when the outcome is known in advance?
The heaviest cost falls on people who never appear in party press conferences. Petrol has crossed Rs393 per litre. Inflation has pushed ordinary households to the edge.
A daily-wage labourer cannot afford a single day without income, let alone a week in custody. Faced with a nationwide crackdown and an empty kitchen, many PTI supporters have quietly stepped back. That is not because they stopped believing. It is because their families need to eat.
A political party that loses its workers to hunger and fear should rethink its strategy, not keep repeating it.
October 4 is now the date, with Sohail Afridi expected to lead the convoy from Peshawar. The state has made clear it is well prepared to deal with any chaos or unrest.
The PTI still has a choice. It can seek a negotiated venue, pursue a lawful route through the courts, or join a genuine all-parties dialogue. Otherwise, it will repeat the Gandapur playbook of mobilise, march and retreat.
Imran Khan’s release will not come from sacrificing more workers at another container. If the PTI truly wants to help its leader, it must first stop spending its supporters’ safety on marches it knows it cannot win.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Lahore Times.
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