Arrests at pro-Palestinian protest after violence flares in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore
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LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani police have arrested more than 100 people following violence in the eastern city of Lahore, a senior official said Saturday.
Supporters of the radical Islamist political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan, or TLP, want to march from Lahore to Islamabad to express their solidarity with Palestinians. But authorities said they don’t have permission to demonstrate in the capital.
Police have clashed with the party’s supporters in Lahore since Friday, using tear gas and batons to disperse the crowds. People are throwing stones in retaliation. On Saturday morning, police fired volleys of canisters and rubber bullets to stop people from breaching barricades.
Kamran Faisal, the city’s deputy inspector general for operations, told reporters that the protesters were violent.
“They have seized official vehicles, damaged several others, and one police vehicle was completely burnt,” Faisal told a press conference. “So far, 112 Lahore police personnel have been injured, and many others are missing, with no information yet about their whereabouts.”
Authorities have arrested more than 100 people, he added. The TLP said police arrested 700 of its supporters.
The party gained prominence in Pakistan’s 2018 elections, campaigning on the single issue of defending the country’s blasphemy law, which calls for the death penalty for anyone insulting Islam.
It was outlawed in Pakistan in 2020 amid violent rallies over the publication of caricatures in France of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, with the ban lifted a year later.
The TLP’s latest march has attracted between 8,000 and 10,000 people, and the party has set up a temporary camp on the outskirts of Lahore.
Authorities have already blocked major roads to Islamabad with shipping containers.
They have also suspended mobile internet services in the capital and the adjoining city of Rawalpindi for a second consecutive day, despite the protesters being several hundred kilometers away. Schools, bus routes, and intercity transport are closed.
Lahore, which has a population of more than 14 million people, is also feeling the strain. Residents described it as a city under siege.
“Even the small streets are sealed, and the air burns your eyes,” said Zeeshan Khalid, a grocery store owner. “People can’t reach work, and ambulances are being turned back.”