people are dishonest. i feel cheated.

we all voted for imran……winner is someone else….

BUT what people need to know is that after the Feb-March intra-party elections, control and management of PTI Lahore activities has been transferred from Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed (of the PTI Nazryati Group of old PTI workers) to Aleem Khan (formerly of the PML-Q and his team of Q-league politicians). The October 2011 Jalsa was organized by Rasheed; security was provided by the Insaf Students Federation (ISF) — they escorted women into and out of gates by forming chains of male volunteers who protected women, they checked people’s bags at the gates, they “guaranteed” the separate family enclosure by forming a fence around it so that men could not trespass.

But the 23rd March jalsa was organized by the new President PTI Lahore, Aleem Khan (minister of PML-Q under Mush, Pervaiz Elahi’s IT minister). He appointed his brother-in-law Faraz Chaudhry as the head of security for the jalsa (also from PML-Q, served as Gulberg Town Nazim under Mush due to recommendation of Aleem Khan). Chaudhry then appointed another PTI worker, who has a horrible reputation for incompetence, as the chief of security for the jalsa. They excluded ISF from all security arrangements for this 23rd event. THIS was the PTI sub-group responsible for managing the event, for choosing the security team, and for overseeing their work.

What people have to understand is that if women are complaining, they are not fabricating these stories. I was among the women who were attacked by a mob of men outside the gate. This happened because the above PTI organizers did not deploy ANY police/workers at the gates, they could not maintain the family/women’s enclosure as a separate area, and they did not warn women in advance so they could have stayed away from the event. If any of us had known that we’d be thrown into a sea of men, in an awaami jalsa, we would have NEVER have gone or invited other women.

Look at Sharif’s jalsa in Mardan. Not one woman there. The October 2011 PTI jalsa allowed women to attend because Mehmood-ur-Rasheed team and ISF went OUT OF THEIR WAY to guarantee security, keeping in mind the social norms in Pakistan.

Gender segregation is breaking down among the middle class in schools, offices, etc. But the vast majority of lower class men do not have access to women, and if they can form a mob, with the benefit of complete anonymity in the dark, and no security presence, they WILL take advantange of this and DID on 23rd March.

Now, the men who deny this happened, let me tell you this: for those of us it happened to,

(1) our families have strictly instructed us not to discuss this in front of men because (a) it will damage our own reputation (b) men will not side with us, they will instead derive a perverse pleasure out of it. So we are silent and are only taking our complaints to women.

(2) mobs of men did this because it was dark. We could not see their faces or identify who was doing what. Mob mentality sets in when there are large numbers, an excited crowd, and anonymity. All three elements were present at the end of the 23rd jalsa, allowing attacks on women to happen. Many men do not know this happened because you could not tell what was happening to one woman trapped in a mob of 40 men, encircling her on all sides. And because the woman will never tell them out of shame.

BUT IT WAS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE PTI LAHORE DISTRICT TEAM TO PREVENT THIS BY PROVIDING SECURITY. If PTI supporters complain to PTI top leaders about the non-performance and negligence by certain city teams, they are not being disloyal to PTI. They are not fabricating charges to help other parties. They are trying to make PTI a better party by keeping it true to its principles, by making it take disciplinary action against those PTI officials who are negligent, who endanger women, who we cannot trust to be Pakistan’s future leaders.

HALF of our population consists of women. Most PTI supporters are women or youth. As a die-hard PTI supporter, I fully support the demand of this blogger (and Zara S of Express Tribune) that PTI step up in support of women. Stop attacking her, and those men who are, consider just for a moment if this had happened to your mother or sister. It happened to women wearing hijabs, women with dopattas covering their heads – so you cannot blame it on them.

MANY PTI MEN helped, and were decent, good men, but the rally had thousands of men from all walks of life, men who had just comed to ‘check out the scene’ from the surrounding old city neighborhoods. It is conceivable that other parties deliberately sent such men into a PTI jalsa to defame the party and that the PML-N Punjab police was delibearately withdrawn to create chaos. BUT regardless of who these men were, the PTI Lahore organizers WERE STILL responsible for deploying PTI security officials or volunteers at gates to control them, instead of giving them a free hand.

I WILL VOTE PTI. BUT WE CAN ONLY MAKE PTI A BETTER PARTY IF WE OPENLY CRITICIZE SPECIFIC PTI OFFICIALS FOR THEIR MISTAKES AND BAD POLICIES so there can be accountability in the party and justice for us all, particularly for women and religious minorities, the weakest elements of our society.

Police is of course always completely useless and is as good as not being there.

Important thing is that when PTI does a jalsa, men, women and children…. everyone comes to attend because they know they are stepping out to change the destiny of Pakistan. In other party’s gatherings women are hardly seen and even if they are seen they are usually forced to come (MQM mafia style).

Its the women and youth of this country who will bring a positive change. We must ensure that women are encouraged to actively participate in such rallies.

Additionally Faheem Gill should be taken to task and a blasphemy case should be registered against him.

In fact the Blasphemy law should be such that the complainant and the accused should both be held responsible and if there is even a slightest doubt that the blasphemy accusations are false, the courts should immediately arrest the accuser and award instant him punishment that should include the following: Publicly expose the false accuser, confiscate all his / her property, award physical punishment (jail + lashing) and put a ban on the accuser of ever holding a public office or getting any government business contract.

Only if the actual consequences of falsely accusing someone of blasphemy are crystal clear and real will idiots like Faheem Gill mind their own business and refrain from doing things that cause embarrassment for the entire nation.