[MENTION=14431]blinding light[/MENTION] TuQ is crazy, I agree. I'm no follower of him.
Hashmi disagreed with IK's decision to move forward, but other leaders have now publicly stated including Shireen Mazari that they were with IK. Even Asad Umar, who I regard very highly, was with IK the whole night.
This is democracy inside the party. One can take it as negative or positive, depending on how they want to perceive it.
As for wire cutters, cranes, etc, they were with the convoy since the first day! How do you think they moved to D-Chowk/Redzone from their zero-point location despite so many containers? It was all on TV, they cut the barbed wire with wire cutters, removed gigantic containers with the cranes before reaching the D-chowk sit-in. Same was happening last night when they were moving in front of the PM house, there were a lot of containers plus barbed wire blocking the route and they were removing the obstacles on the road with these tools.
There was no threat to state symbols, there is not a SINGLE threat even yet. No one has stormed any building, they are all respecting the buildings and army who has politely asked them not to enter any building. They entered parliament house lawn to get shelter and escape tear-gas effects, even Army allowed them to stay in the lawns and get shelter!
There never was any intention to enter any building. Even Army has said the protesters were peaceful. Do you know Wajahat S Khan? He has done a lot of programs on military, has done defence journalism, is a national security editor at GEO/Jang. Has close ties to the military. Here's some reality for you, from the army's point of view: