The crackdown contradicts the government’s ?

The crackdown contradicts the government’s assertions of tolerance for the PTI march.

Despite the PML-assertion N’s that it would allow the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) to march on Islamabad as long as it was peaceful, the government initiated a crackdown late Monday night.

The government action followed a high-powered party meeting at Model Town — chaired by PM Shehbaz Sharif and attended by his elder brother Nawaz via video link — which also resolved that the government will not be dictated by ousted premier Imran Khan’s demand for early elections.

However, PML-N elders urged the interior minister to make all necessary arrangements for the PTI’s long march. The PTI leadership had previously claimed that the government had compiled a list of persons it intended to deport.

The opposition party’s fears were realized late Monday night, when police searched the homes of several prominent PTI executives, despite assurances that their leaders would not be targeted or imprisoned before of the scheduled march on the capital.

On Sunday, PTI leader Imran Khan revealed the PTI’s plans to organize an ‘Azadi March’ on Islamabad on May 25 (tomorrow), apparently after talks with the establishment over early elections fell down.

There were rumors of late-night police raids on the homes of former federal minister Hammad Azhar in Lahore, as well as Sheikh Rashid Ahmed’s Lal Haveli residence and the homes of Fayyazul Hasan Chohan and Ijaz Khan Jazi in Rawalpindi.