Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Fawad Chaudhry said on Tuesday that his party was not in favor of clashes and supported peaceful protests against the ‘imported government’.

“Should a political party develop a militant that first fights with the police so that the party could protest” Chaudhry asked while addressing a press conference alongside Hammad Azhar in Islamabad.

“PTI is the only party that has no militant wing,” he added.

Replying to a question about Imran Khan’s statement in which he admitted party workers were armed, the PTI leader said that there were armed guards with the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, CM Gilgit-Baltistan and PM Azad Kashmir which the PTI chairman was talking about.

PTI did not want clashes with law-enforcement agencies and clarified that his party was in favor of peaceful protest, Chaudhry said.

“Because of the armed guards, the situation could have spiralled out of control. This was the reason behind calling off the long march,” said Fawad.

He said that thousands of people were out for the PTI’s protest against the ‘imported government’ and were ready for the party’s next long march. “The police tortured the unarmed protestors (during the May 25 protest).”

He said the PTI has no intention to return to the National Assembly as his party considers it ‘occupied’.

The PTI leader said that the National Assembly speaker does not have the authority to review the resignation of his party’s lawmakers as the resignation were already accepted by the previous speaker of the National Assembly.

A day earlier, National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervez Ashraf summoned the PTI lawmakers who had resigned from their assembly seats, asking them to verify their resignations.

Lashing out at Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah, the former information minister said that if one closed his eyes and listened to the interior minister, “it seems that Altaf Hussain was speaking.”