Khan was invited to publicly speak to the Kashmiris – for first time after he was ousted from power through a no trust motion in April this year - by his party’s regional president and AJK prime minister Sardar Tanveer Ilyas who, his team said, had been personally monitoring the arrangements with regard to the event ever since.
Over the past few days the prime minister has been making contacts with party office bearers in different parts of Muzaffarabad division and elsewhere to ensure that their PTI activists faced no problems in making it to the K H Khurshid Mini Football Stadium in Upper Adda neighbourhood of Muzaffarabad to attend the jalsa.
Talking to reporters on Thursday, Ilyas maintained that since the PTI chairman was a leader of international standing and his views were paid heed across the globe.
"Among other things, Khan will give a special message of hope and solidarity to the struggling people of occupied Kashmir from the soil of the liberated territory today."
“What I have gathered from my meetings with people from different segments of society is that everyone is eager to catch a glimpse of the charismatic leader for his bold and unequivocal stance on the just cause of Kashmiris on the one hand and his generous fiscal aid for the development and progress of the liberated territory during his rule on the other,” Ilyas said.
PTI activist Touseef Abbasi told reporters that it would be Khan’s 52nd public meeting in the country after his ouster by the forces “inimical to the progress, prosperity and true freedom of Pakistan.
At the venue of the public meeting, three grandstands have been erected by a Gujranwala based company towards the northern side, in a departure from the past practice of erecting the stage towards the western side.
Quoting the stage manufacturing company, Abbasi said that so far such a big and capacious stage had not been installed at any public meeting in Pakistan.
The 20 feet high main stage offering 24x8 feet space would house Mr Khan, Mr Ilyas and other central leaders while the other two 10 feet high stages, each offering 24x8 feet space, would accommodate local leaders, he said.
On the front side of the main stage, the outline portraits of Khan and Ilyas with an emblem of haqeeqi azadi (real freedom) in the middle had been printed on a red screen.
According to another organiser, a separate enclosure fenced with barbed wire and having an independent entrance has been set up for women.
The ‘special guests’ would be hosted lunch at the PM House while all other participants would be served with packed food in the playground, where around 150 loudspeakers had been installed to ensure audibility in every nook and cranny.
He inforned that Khan’s helicopter would make a landing in a hockey ground near the PM House from where he would drive to Upper Adda along with PM Ilyas through Tariqabad bypass at about 3:30pm.
A police official informed that around 1500 police personnel had been deployed in the city to maintain law and order without causing any inconvenience to the residents.
Tariq Naqash
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