Zubair Qureshi
Federal capital administration and police both are working on two-pronged policy in order to restrain the leaders of Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) from reaching Islamabad and holding a protest at the D Chowk of Islamabad on Sunday (tomorrow) against publication of blasphemous caricatures in France.
A protest rally is also planned at the Serena Hotel Chowk in front of the Embassy of France to register their protest.
While the district administration is engaging the local clerics and main leaders of the TLP in dialogue, the police on the other hand are picking some of them from various areas of Islamabad to break the momentum of the protesters.
“We have to work very carefully as it is a very sensitive matter. If we make large-scale arrests, they will blame us for standing by the blasphemers,” said a senior official of the police requesting anonymity.
A day earlier, a meeting of senior police and district administration officers took place with Interior Minister Brig (R) Ijaz Ahmed Shah in chair and a strategy was devised to counter the TLP leaders.
In Rawalpindi too, a number of arrests were made. In Sadar Bairooni, police picked a local Imam of Masjid-e-Bahar Madina for delivering anti-state speeches and for holding a rally without the district government’s permission.
In Sector I-9 and other sectors too, police picked a number of local TLP leaders so that they could be prevented from a show of power at the Serena Chowk.
Meanwhile, the local residents of Islamabad and general public have kept themselves away from the TLP protest saying it will be an assembly of handful religious extremists with vested interests. TLP Chief Khadim Rizvi’s video clip has also contributed to people’s sense of alimentation in which the cleric can be seen calling Muslims of a different sect (Wahabi) as pigs. “We need not respect the call of prayer that is coming from their mosque,” Khadim Rizvi can be seen in that video clip as saying.
“I cannot believe a man who claims to be custodian of their faith can use such foul language,” said Amir Rana, a private office worker.
This has exposed their agenda that they are more interested in their own interests than what is happening in France, he said.
Sana, a housewife and a mother of three said she was concerned about the law and order situation in the wake of the protests which she said she was sure would go violent. Pakistan authorities should not be blackmailed by such handful elements and take strict action against these enemies of state and focus on interfaith harmony, she said.
Meanwhile, senior officers had approached the TLP leaders after they sought security cover for the protest.
Earlier, an application was submitted to the office of the deputy commissioner, requesting security for the protest rally from Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi to Faizabad in Islamabad.
