3 killed as police crack down on hardline group in Lahore
Acrackdown by security forces on protesting supporters of a banned radical party left at least three people dead and 20 others injured on Sunday, a police official and a party spokesman said.
Lahore police spokesman Rana Arif said supporters of the hardline Tehreek- e-labbaik Pakistan party attacked police with a petrol bomb and took custody of six security officers, including Deputy Superintendent Umar Farooq Baluch and two paramilitary. Arif alleged the officers were tortured.
Police said 11 of the injured were police who needed to be hospitalised.
“The TLP activists have two fuel tankers containing thousands of liters of petrol. They are throwing petrol bombs and stones at security officials, and also shooting bullets as the result of which 11 officials are injured,” Rana said.
Shafiq Ameeni, Tehreek-e-labbaik spokesman, posted a video clip on social media saying that police moved in on the party’s supporters at the group’s offices in Lahore at about 8am. Ameeni said several of the group’s supporters were killed and others wounded in the violence.
Pakistani news channels have been barred from providing coverage of the group since it was banned last week , and on Sunday mobile and internet services were down in the area where clashes took place.
Roads leading to the headquarters of the group, in Lahore’s Chowk Yateem Khana, have been blocked. Still, supporters of TLP have been sharing videos on social media of what they said were clashes on Sunday with police, and hashtags supporting the group were trending on Sunday.
The videos showed thousands of protesters clashing with police in riot-gear, as clouds of tear gas hung in the air and the crackle of gunfire could be heard. Other videos showed injured protesters being carried away.
The government banned the TLP last week after supporters took to the streets to protest the arrest of their leader Saad Rizvi.
Rizvi had called on the government to honour what he said was a commitment it made in February to his party to expel the French envoy over the publication in France of blasphemous cartoons. The government said that it only committed to discussing the matter in parliament.
A video clip on social media apparently recorded at the TLP’S offices in Lahore shows images of what appeared to be dead and injured TLP supporters. —