ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Thousands of Pakistani Islamists clashed with police on Tuesday for protesting the arrest of their leader ahead of rallies denouncing French cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad, officials said.
At least one activist and a police officer have died from overnight injuries after Islamists blocked highways, railways and main entrances and exits, paralyzing business in almost every major city.
Police fired tear gas to disperse protesters, government official Naveed Zaman told Reuters, adding that they refused to leave until the release of their leader, Saad Rizvi, who was arrested on Monday.
Rizvi is the leader of an extremist group, Tehrik-i-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), which rose to the scene, making the denunciation of blasphemy against Islam its resounding cry.
Protesters beat an officer, who died on Tuesday and injured at least 40 people, a spokesman for police in East Lahore told Reuters.
A protester died in a southwestern district, a police chief said on condition of anonymity.
The video showed several protesters beating and dragging police and pedestrians, whom government adviser Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi condemned. He told Reuters that the law would follow suit against those responsible.
The group blocked one of the main roads to the capital at the end of last year and canceled its protest only after the government signed an agreement with them, agreeing to support the boycott of French products.
At the time, protests erupted in several Muslim countries over France’s response to a deadly attack on a teacher who showed students during a civic lesson a cartoon mocking the Prophet Mohammad.
The Pakistani parliament has condemned the reprinting of cartoons in France, urging the government to withdraw its ambassador.
For Muslims, the prophet’s descriptions are blasphemous.
The agreement with the government was revised earlier this year to extend the deadline for a parliamentary resolution to expel the French envoy until April 20, when the group had plans to hold national rallies.
Police arrested Rizvi before demonstrations.
“We are on the street because the government has not honored the agreement,” said group spokesman Ejaz Ashrafi.
He said he had received reports of eight protesters being killed in clashes.
The French embassy in Islamabad and Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Reporting by Asif Shahzad in Islamabad and Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore; Additional reporting by Umar Farooq in Islamabad and Gul Yousafzai in Quetta; Editing by Nick Macfie