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Troops 'seal off' Islamabad
19/02/2006 20:27 - (SA)
Islamabad - Pakistani security forces arrested hundreds of Islamic hardliners and virtually sealed off the capital on Sunday, before using gunfire and tear gas to disperse a Prophet Muhammad cartoon protest that had been banned by the government after a wave of deadly riots.
The cartoons published by a Danish newspaper in September and reprinted by other Western publications have caused outrage among Muslims, and mass protests have turned increasingly violent and claimed at least 45 lives worldwide.
Anxious to avoid a repeat of riots that killed five people in two Pakistani cities last week, thousands of police and paramilitary forces, some in armoured personnel carriers, others behind sandbag bunkers, were deployed in and around Islamabad on Sunday to block a planned rally organised by a coalition of hardline Islamic parties, Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) or United Action Forum. The MMA sympathises with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and is fiercely anti-US.
Authorities mounted roadblocks around the capital and declared they would arrest anyone joining a gathering of more than five people. 'Unconstitutional'
Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman, who denounced the government ban as unconstitutional, was allowed to stage a small rally with eight other opposition lawmakers and a few supporters. They chanted "God is great!" and "Any friend of America is a traitor."
But police fired tear gas and warning gunshots to quell hundreds of other protesters, who attempted to join them and then enter the diplomatic enclave where most foreign embassies are located. The three-hour clash left the street littered with rocks and spent tear gas shells. An Associated Press reporter saw two injured police, one bleeding from his head, and several injured protesters.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said police used tear gas, not gunfire. He said police had arrested between 100 and 150 people in the city since late Saturday.
Authorities made hundreds of arrests to pre-empt the protest. Overnight, police raided homes and offices, rounding up about 300 people in the nearby city of Rawalpindi and the eastern hub of Lahore. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, a top MMA leader, was confined to his Lahore residence and others were detained or told to stay at home, police said. 'Problems'
"These people could create problems of law and order," said Chaudhry Shafqaat Ahmed, chief investigator of Lahore police.
In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, police said 15 000 MMA supporters, most wearing white shrouds of mourning, splashed with red paint to symbolize their willingness to die defending the prophet's honour, rallied peacefully.
Among them was 12-year-old boy, Amar Ahmed, who carried a sign that read, "O Allah, give me courage to kill the blasphemer."
Separately, hundreds of Muslims torched a church in the southern city of Sukkur. No worshippers were inside at the time, but one person was hurt afterward when police fired tear gas.
Local police chief Akbar Arian said the unrest was sparked not by the prophet cartoons but allegations a local Christian had burned pages of Islam&#,39;s holy book, the Qur'an.
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