Salman Akram Raja, PTI leaders say banned from entering Britain ahead of elections

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) General Secretary Salman Akram Raja along with party founder Imran Khan’s Legal Affairs Spokesperson Naeem Panjutha and MPA Shaukat Basra were banned from entering Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) on Tuesday to participate in the final phase of campaigning ahead of the upcoming elections on June 7.

In a post on “We, along with friends who came from the FSI, were surrounded by police vehicles and expelled from the province,” he added.

In a separate post, the secretary general said his name, along with those of his companions, had been handed over to the authorities so that the group could be prevented from entering Britain. He added that “the fundamental relationship between the public and the State, formed on the basis of votes, has been broken.”

Read: PTI regrets arrest of leaders in GB

Furthermore, Raja claimed that authorities told him and the group that they had been ordered to stop the group and ensure that they did not enter Britain.

The PTI also released a statement on its official X account, saying that Britain’s police detained the leaders at the first checkpoint as soon as they entered Gilgit.

Panjutha, part of the exiled group, claimed that the PTI was not allowed to campaign and wrote that the party symbol was sometimes taken away and authorities were sometimes ordered to conduct raids. “Everyone else is allowed vehicles, but we are not allowed to go,” he said.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Party (KP) president Junaid Akbar Khan was arrested by the British police in Hunza on Friday while campaigning for the upcoming elections. Akbar was visiting several areas in the region as part of the PTI’s election campaign when he was arrested along with National Assembly members Saleemur Rehman and Syed Mehboob Shah.

Akbar said he was told to leave Gilgit because he did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC).

Reacting to the arrest and expulsion of Raja’s group from the province, Akbar took to X and called the incident “extremely shameful and condemnable”. And he added: “My question is: if the elections are truly free and transparent, why then so much fear of the PTI and its leaders?”

“Those who claim to direct the elections: will the “transparency” of the elections be guaranteed by tying the hands and feet of political opponents, arresting them and expelling them from the province? Has this kingdom of darkness simply been called democracy?” he asked.

Read more: KP CM Afridi writes to GB chief judge, seeks judicial intervention over election concerns

Meanwhile, PTI provincial general secretary Ali Asghar Khan said that “all limits of shamelessness have been crossed”.

Senior PTI leader Asad Qaiser also claimed on May 30 that he had been barred from reaching Islamabad airport and had missed his flight to Skardu for the election campaign.

“Punjab Police did not allow entry into the Islamabad airport, blocked the access routes to the airport and we along with the general public had to face severe difficulties,” Qaiser said after the incident. The former speaker of the National Assembly added that the police kept him in custody until his flight to Skardu departed.

The cases of PTI leaders claiming they are being restricted from campaigning in GB for the polls came as those of other political parties such as the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan People’s Party continue their push to mobilize voters in the region through rallies and public meetings.