ISLAMABAD: Pakistani police used tear gas and water cannon, and fought running battles with stone-throwing activists, as they moved to clear a sit-in by the religious hard-liners who have blocked the main routes into the capital of Islamabad for more than two weeks.
The protests have spread to other main cities, including Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar.
The clashes began on Saturday when police launched an operation involving some 4,000 officers to disperse around 1,000 activists from Tehreek-e-Labaik, a new hard-line political party, and break up their camp, police official Saood Tirmizi said.
Dozens of protesters were arrested, Tirmizi said, and hospitals reported dozens of people were being treated for injuries.
The mass protest, plus the recent gains of two new parties in Pakistan, demonstrated the religious right’s gathering strength ahead of what are expected to be tumultuous elections next year.
Television footage showed a police vehicle on fire, heavy curtains of smoke and fires burning in the streets as officers in heavy riot gear advanced. Protesters, some wearing gas masks, fought back in scattered battles across empty highways and surrounding neighbourhoods.
“We are in our thousands. We will not leave. We will fight until end,” Tehreek-e-Labaik party spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi said by telephone from the scene. By midday, TV coverage had been cut off and private channels were off the air by orders of the official media regulator.
The protesters have paralysed daily life in the capital, and have defied court orders to disband, demanding the firing of the minister of law.
Tehreek-e-Labaik blames the minister, Zahid Hamid, for changes to an electoral oath that it says amounts to blasphemy. The government puts the issue down to a clerical error.
Since Tehreek-e-Labaik began its sit-in, the government has blocked several roads with shipping containers to corral the protesters, but that has caused hours-long traffic jams in and around the capital.
The government had tried to negotiate an end to the sit-in, fearing violence during a crackdown similar to 2007, when clashes between authorities and supporters of a radical Islamabad mosque led to the deaths of more than 100 people. — Reuters
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