**Former federal minister and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Fawad Chaudhry has said that the coalition government was using arrests and other means to put pressure on PTI leaders in order to stop them from protesting against the ‘imported government’.

“Only the government which the people will form through election will be recognized,” the former information minister said while addressing a press conference in Islamabad on Thursday.

Lashing out at the incumbent government over ‘a new episode of barbarism’, the PTI leader said that the wife of Shehbaz Gill’s driver was arrested and their five-month-old daughter was not being allowed to meet the mother. “We witnessed similar things on May 25,” he added, referring to the clashes between PTI workers and police in Islamabad and Lahore prior to their protest march.

Astroturf issues

On his party’s planned protest at the hockey stadium in Lahore on August 13, Fawad said that the PTI would never damage state assets.

“We have ensured that the astroturf will not be damaged.”

Earlier on Wednesday, the astroturf for Lahore’s hockey stadium, said to be the largest in the world, was ripped out to prepare for the PTI’s public gathering.

PTI has said that the astroturf will be shifted to Sargodha, adding that the summary to shift the astrotruf was already prepared.

Candy Crush

Chaudhry also took at Marriyum Aurangzeb, his successor as minister for information and broadcasting, saying that she plays Candy Crush on her mobile phone “even during press conferences”.

He said that her stewardship has had a detrimental impact on the state broadcaster. He claimed that when he was the information minister the PTI government had turned PTV’s losses into a profit of Rs4 billion.

“If it continues like this for two or three months, the state broadcaster will once again lose money,” he added.