{"id":31979,"date":"2017-11-20T12:58:01","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T07:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31979"},"modified":"2017-11-20T13:02:13","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T08:02:13","slug":"interior-minister-ahsan-iqbal-arrives-at-ihc-for-hearing-of-islamabad-sit-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31979","title":{"rendered":"Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal arrives at IHC for hearing of Islamabad sit-in; judge says he will issue a \u2018contempt of court\u2019 order for non-implementation of order"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD Nov 20 (TNS):<\/strong> Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal has arrived at the Islamabad High Court (IHC) after he and interior secretary were summoned by the court on the non-implementation of its order, calling for an immediate end of the Faizabad sit-in.<\/p>\n

Hearing the case regarding the sit-in on Monday, Justice Shaukat Siddiqui expressed reservations saying that the government did not implement his order to clear the protest by 10am Saturday despite his clear-cut directions to the local administration.<\/p>\n

The judge said that he will issue a \u2018contempt of court\u2019 order in this regard.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Commuters in the twin cities continue to face hardship as the protest sit-in at Faizabad Interchange, linking the main Islamabad-Rawalpindi route, by religious parties enters its\u00a0fifteenth day today.<\/p>\n

Sources said the daily deployment of police and paramilitary personnel is costing the government Rs5 million every day.<\/p>\n

One-point agenda meeting today<\/p>\n

Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal has called an emergency meeting of religious scholars belonging to all schools of thought over the ongoing protest at 3pm today.<\/p>\n

The consultative meeting, to be held at the Religious Affairs Ministry, is the latest effort on behalf of the government to bring the protest to a peaceful end.<\/p>\n

Sources said the meeting will have a single-point agenda: how to resolve the crisis in the capital.<\/p>\n

Iqbal, Pakistan Muslim League-N leader Raja Zafarul Haq and State Minister for Religious Affairs Pir Aminul Hasnaat have previously met a number of protest leaders in view of reaching a breakthrough to end the sit-in.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The interior minister in his press conference on Sunday said that all options are available for dispersing the Islamabad protest, adding that a security operation is the last option as the government will try to avoid bloodshed.<\/p>\n

Addressing the media alongside State Minister for Religious Affairs, Iqbal had said the government will go “to any extent” to resolve the issue, including a security operation, adding that protesters blocking the Faizabad Interchange are engaging in a propaganda to incite emotions of the people.<\/p>\n

“Our forces have the capability to clear the area but we are keeping the operation as the last option. This is not a sign of weakness but we are doing this out of respect [for the matter of finality of Prophethood].”<\/p>\n

The protest has nothing to do with religion or religious demands and “such organisations” take these steps to advance ahead of elections, he said.<\/p>\n

“The protesters demand that Law Minister Zahid Hamid should step down; however, there is no proof that he is responsible for the mistake. A committee has been formed in this regard which will probe the matter so there is no justification for the protest,” he said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISLAMABAD Nov 20 (TNS): Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal has arrived at the Islamabad High Court (IHC) after he and interior secretary were summoned by the court on the non-implementation of its order, calling for an immediate end of the Faizabad sit-in. Hearing the case regarding the sit-in on Monday, Justice Shaukat Siddiqui expressed reservations saying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,23],"tags":[118,589],"class_list":["post-31979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad","category-national","tag-islamabad","tag-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31979"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31985,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31979\/revisions\/31985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}