LAHORE:
The Punjab government has announced that the Basant festival will be held from February 6 to 8 after receiving formal approval for the first fully government-sponsored and organized festival celebration in over two decades.
The move comes amid sustained online and offline opposition to an event that remains banned by Supreme Court orders due to its historically high casualty rate.
The timing of the festival has raised eyebrows as it coincides with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) nationwide strike and protest call on February 8 to mark allegations of fraud in the general elections.
While critics view the overlap as deliberate, the PTI has said it will seek to turn the situation to its advantage rather than treating Basant as an obstacle.
PTI Punjab spokesperson MP (retd) Mushtaq said the event was intentionally timed to overlap with the party’s protest call, adding that “this event has been deliberately kept on days that overlap with our protest call, but we will use this incident as an opportunity.”
At the same time, police sources acknowledged that this overlap posed an operational challenge, as law enforcement would be required to distinguish between festival-goers and PTI protesters.
Given the threat that Basant poses to human life, the festival has been subjected to a series of strict safeguards, chief among them a fine of Rs 2,000 for motorcycles without safety bars.
Former Jamaat-e-Islami spokesperson Qaiser Sharif said that despite the ban, the festival had claimed ten lives.
He said one person lost his life and nine others were injured due to stray ropes.
He added that the festival was being revived for political purposes, noting that the Supreme Court ban was imposed due to deaths caused by lost threads, especially among two-wheeler riders.
He said while the Government was happy to distribute free crash bars, the same commitment had not been shown when it came to helmets. He said the online survey showed people did not want the return of what he described as a deadly festival.
Former PPP chairman from Lahore Aslam Gill also opposed the revival of Basant, saying there was no point in reviving a festival that people had long forgotten. He said the event put innocent lives at risk and should have been a memory of the past.
PTI’s Brigadier (retd) Mushtaq also opposed the replay, saying a single human life was more valuable than the entire event.
