Lahore, October 27
At least eight persons, including four policemen, were killed on Wednesday in fresh clashes between supporters of a radical Islamist party and police in Pakistan’s Punjab province after the Imran Khan government failed to meet their demands to release party chief Saad Rizvi and expel the French envoy.
More than 10,000 supporters of the banned Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) who had been camping between Muridke and Gujranwala along the GT Road for the last three days on Wednesday started marching towards Islamabad after Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government announced it “cannot meet the TLP’s demand for expulsion of the French ambassador”.
The trigger
- Over 10,000 supporters of the banned Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan who had been camping between Muridke and Gujranwala along the GT Road for the last three days started marching towards Islamabad on Wednesday
- The move came after Imran Khan government announced it “cannot meet the TLP’s demand for expulsion of the French envoy”
- When they reached Sadhoke, the police stopped them by force
TLP’s founder late Khadim Rizvi’s son Saad Rizvi has been detained by the Punjab government since April under the maintenance of ‘public order’ following the party’s protest against the blasphemous caricatures of Islam’s Prophet published in France and its demand that the French ambassador be sent back and imports from that country be banned.
On Wednesday, clashes took place between Islamists and the police at Sadhoke, some 50 km from Lahore, when thousands of the protesters started the march towards Islamabad after getting the go-ahead from their leadership. “When the TLP workers reached Sadhoke, the police stopped them by force. The police used tear gas shells to disperse the protesters. The clashes left dozens of TLP workers, including policemen injured,” a senior police officer said. — PTI
(The article is generated from The Tribune via feeds, The Chenab Times staff didn’t wrote this news.)
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