Protests disrupt supplies of Oxygen for Covid patients
Thousands of supporters of a radical party who blocked major roads to protest the arrest of their leader also disrupted critical oxygen supplies for Covid-19 patients, health officials said on Tuesday.
Major intersections remained closed in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-biggest city, after the arrest on Monday of Saad Rizvi, the leader of Tehreek-e-labbaik Pakistan (TLP).
The party has led calls for the expulsion of the French ambassador, after the government of President Emmanuel Macron expressed support for a magazine’s right to republish blasphemous caricature.
Yasmin Rashid, a Minister of Health in Punjab, said the disruption of oxygen supplies during protests on Monday night had been a “crisis”.
“Please do not block roads for ambulances and for visitors to the hospitals. Some ambulances are carrying oxygen cylinders, which are extremely essential for Covid patients,” Rashid said.
About 1,100 coronavirus patients in government hospitals need oxygen, while almost 250 patients are on a ventilator, reported Geo News.
“The situation is bad and hospitals are utilising the available oxygen but if cylinders are not supplied to the hospitals within the next two or three hours, the situation will take a turn for the worse,” said Mayo Hospital’s Chief Executive in charge of coronavirus wards, Dr Asad Aslam, said earlier.
Punjab pandemic pointman Asad Aslam said several hospitals had faced oxygen shortages Monday night, but later the situation had stabilised after roads were cleared by authorities.
Pakistan is in the grip of a deadly third wave of the coronavirus with a shortage of vaccines.
Meanwhile, thousands of radicals clashed with police for a second day on Tuesday in protest against the arrest of their leader ahead of rallies denouncing French blasphemous caricatures, officials said.
At least one activist and one police officer died from wounds suffered overnight after a radical party’s supporters blocked highways, rail tracks and main entry and exit routes, paralysing business in almost all major cities.
Police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters, government official Naveed Zaman said, adding that they had re
fused to leave until the release of their leader, Saad Rizvi, who was arrested on Monday.
Rizvi is the head of the TLP that rose to prominence making the denunciation of blasphemy its rallying cry. The protesters beat one officer, who died on Tuesday, and wounded at least 40, a police spokesman in Lahore said. One protester died in a southwestern district, a police chief said on condition of anonymity.
Video showed some protesters beating and dragging police and pedestrians, which government adviser Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi condemned. He told Reuters the law would take its course against those responsible. —