Party president contrasts Pakistani youth with a ‘cockroach’ found ‘in another country’, an apparent reference to India’s Gen Z protest movement, and urges young people to defend the country online
LAHORE: Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML) President Khalid Masood Sindhu told a youth rally in Lahore that Pakistan’s young people were “Iqbal’s Shaheens”, and said those who spread despair among them could not be their well-wishers.
“A cockroach may be found in another country, but our Pakistani youth are Iqbal’s Shaheens,” Sindhu said at the Jawan-e-Pakistan Convention organised by the party’s youth wing, the Muslim Youth League (MYL). The shaheen, or falcon, is the poet-philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal’s best-known symbol for a self-respecting, fearless young Muslim.
The line drew an implicit contrast with India, where a youth protest movement has adopted the cockroach as its emblem. Sindhu did not name the country.
Where the cockroach came from
India’s so-called Cockroach Janta Party took its name from a remark in May by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, who compared unemployed young people and social media activists to “cockroaches”. The satirical movement, launched the next day, drew millions of online followers and moved onto the streets in June over leaked entrance examinations, eventually spreading to more than a dozen Indian cities. Indian police detained its founder and other leaders after a protest in New Delhi this month, according to international media reports.
An online imitator calling itself Cockroach Party Pakistan appeared on Instagram this year, describing itself as a voice of youth against corruption and nepotism. Indian media reported in July that it was being run from abroad, and its support inside Pakistan is unclear. Sindhu’s remark appeared to reject the idea that the label, or the despair behind it, describes Pakistani youth.
Rights, responsibilities and frustration
Sindhu urged young people to understand their responsibilities as well as their rights and to take an active part in national development. He said political point-scoring and battles over credit should not come at the cost of young people’s rights.
He also offered a warning to those in power. Youth movements around the world were creating new political and social dynamics, he said, and rulers who denied people their rights should take note of growing frustration among the young. The remark comes after youth-led protests toppled the government in Nepal last year and shook administrations from Morocco to India.
The PMML, he said, believed in practical steps to build young people’s capabilities, protect their rights and help them contribute to national progress. He called on them to join the ideological debate on social media, to protect Pakistan’s ideological foundations and to counter narratives hostile to the country.
Jobs and skills on the agenda
Other speakers said dignified employment, guidance and access to modern skills were essential for young people. They argued that expertise in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies could make young Pakistanis self-reliant and give them a meaningful role in the economy.
Those concerns are backed by the numbers. People aged 15 to 29 make up more than a quarter of Pakistan’s population, and national unemployment stood at 7.1%, or about 5.9 million people, according to the Economic Survey 2025-26. Young graduates in Lahore have increasingly turned to freelancing and online work as formal jobs lag behind.
The Punjab government has made youth technology programmes a centrepiece of its own pitch, from laptop and e-bike schemes for students, with a new laptop drive launched in Sahiwal last week, to an AI intelligence hub in Lahore. The convention’s emphasis on AI skills put the PMML on similar ground while casting itself as the party closer to youth grievances.
Mudassar Iqbal Chaudhry, Syed Abdul Rafi, Faisal Baloch, Adil Ali and Azam Farooq were among the party figures present. Organisers said a large number of young people attended; no independent estimate of the crowd was available.
A party building a youth base
The convention is part of a broader effort by the PMML to organise young voters in Punjab. In August, the MYL issued a seven-point youth declaration in Lahore calling for reserved youth seats in the assemblies, a national paid internship programme, interest-free loans for young entrepreneurs and a drive against drugs in campuses. The party has also announced 25 rescue centres and a first-responder programme through its welfare wing.
The PMML contested the 2024 general election, fielding more than 500 candidates and drawing over 525,000 votes without winning a seat, and it ran a candidate in last month’s NA-77 Gujranwala by-election. It is pressing the Election Commission to announce a date for Punjab’s local government polls, where youth turnout could matter.
The party was registered with the Election Commission before the 2024 polls. Its predecessor, the Milli Muslim League, was designated by the United States in 2018 as an alias of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba. The PMML presents itself as a mainstream party focused on welfare, governance and national unity.
The MYL says it will continue holding youth conventions across Punjab. With local elections still unscheduled and frustration over jobs and prices running high, the contest for young voters in Lahore is likely to sharpen, and the PMML is positioning itself to compete for it.
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