Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has said that the PTI’s protest was still on and that only PTI founder Imran Khan had the authority to call it off.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur was addressing a press conference in Mansehra.

The crucial address to the media comes after their three-day protest, termed “do-or-die” or the “final call,” ended abruptly last night, with the government slamming the PTI for damages to the economy and nation.

Ali Amin Gandapur has alleged that PTI has been subjected to systematic oppression. “Our party has faced coercion, and baseless cases have been registered against us,” he claimed during a press conference, adding that their leader Imran Khan is in jail, while his wife has also been incarcerated.

The PTI, in the early hours of Wednesday, announced that it was calling off its high-stakes Islamabad protest sit-in “for the time being”, following a day of clashes between security forces and protesters in the city’s Red Zone ended in the party leadership’s hasty retreat.

As PTI supporters inched towards the heavily barricaded D-Chowk late on Tuesday, the police and security forces employed intense teargas shelling to disperse the protesters.

The late-night retreat by the PTI leadership, including Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur, came after the latter was heard telling the protesters “to go home, have dinner and return tomorrow”.

Addressing a press conference in the afternoon in Mansehra, CM Gandapur said, “The sit-in is ongoing.”

Noting that the call was given on Imran’s order, the chief minister remarked, “It is not necessary that every sit-in has people in it.”