Pakistan crackdown targets PTI supporters’ businesses in Punjab

In Punjab province, Pakistan, supporters of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party have reported that authorities are targeting businesses of those sympathetic to the former prime minister. Hammad Azhar, a top PTI aide, said his family-owned business, AFCO Steel Industries, was closed by police for over a week without any documentary evidence or sealing warrants.

“The authorities did not have any documentary evidence or sealing warrants, and yet they sealed our factory,” Azhar said. “Thankfully, after we filed a petition, the Lahore High Court on June 7 gave us relief and ordered authorities to reopen our factory.”

The arrest of Khan on May 9 sparked nationwide protests, with thousands of PTI workers and party leaders arrested for vandalism and rioting during the rallies. The government has promised to try those involved in military courts. Many party supporters and workers accuse police of conducting raids on their homes and businesses as part of a nationwide witch-hunt meant to intimidate them.

Khan has repeatedly claimed that Pakistan’s powerful military establishment is trying to pressure his party members to “break” the PTI. Since Khan’s arrest, police have conducted six raids on Azhar’s home to try to arrest him as one of the alleged conspirators behind the May 9 violence. He said he has gone into hiding but police detained his father for two hours on June 4.

A longtime party supporter from Sargodha, a city in the eastern province of Punjab, said on Wednesday that his family-owned wedding hall business was also closed by police in late May. “We have been running these wedding halls since 2018, and we have never faced any problems in the past,” he told Al Jazeera. “However, this time, a few police officials came on May 31, and on some flimsy excuses of land control violations, they sealed the business.”

Amir Mir, the interim information minister for Punjab province, confirmed that businesses across the region had been sealed but insisted that only those who broke the law were affected. “These are routine matters, and hundreds of sealing orders have been issued,” Mir told Al Jazeera, declining to elaborate.

Another PTI supporter, who asked to remain anonymous, said his motorcycle showroom in the eastern city of Lahore was shuttered by police late last month, costing him millions of rupees in revenue. “Our showroom usually sells more than 400 motorbikes in a month, with an average price of one unit over 240,000 rupees [US$835]. You can imagine how much business we are losing out due to this closure,” he said, adding that he too is in hiding.

State authorities have repeatedly denied that PTI supporters or their businesses have been targeted. An official with the provincial commissioner’s office in Lahore said the province is currently cracking down on illegal encroachments. Allegations of PTI supporters being targeted were unfounded, he said. “Last week, we issued more than 200 sealing warrants on account of encroachment for dengue-related matters and several other civic violations,” the official told Al Jazeera. “Claiming that this is an act of vengeance against one political party or its supporters is completely baseless,” he said.