-- Eight dead, 96 injured as police, PAT workers clash
The injured, 10 of whom are stated to be in a critical condition, were shifted to Jinnah hospital. According to hospital sources, the injured also include 17 police personnel. As many as 61 workers received bullet injuries. The Lahore High Court Chief has appointed Justice Ali Bakar Najfi as inquiry commissioner. The commission will complete its inquiry within a month.
The clash started on Monday night when police tried to remove barriers outside Tahirul Qadri's residence in Model Town and his party secretariat. Police baton-charged and teargassed demonstrators for offering resistance. Police also arrested around 54 protesters and workers of PAT and registered a case at Faisal Town police station under section 780-A, 302, 324, 353, 148, 149 etc.
Police on Tuesday claimed to have recovered weapons from the possession of PAT workers who clashed with law-enforcers in Lahore. "We have recovered automatic weapons from PAT activists. The CCPO Lahore, Shafeeq Gujar claimed at a press conference. According to him, armed men opened direct fire on policemen. He said 53 PAT workers have been arrested. "We are still chasing after them and hopefully all of them will be captured," he said.
Later, police managed to remove all the barriers despite intense opposition through anti-encroachment workforce. Police personnel were present in the locality to monitor the work and ensure protesters are kept under control. Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said media persons that the road blockades outside Qadri's house were being removed on the complaints filed by the residents of Model Town. Rana said barriers outside Qadri's house and party secretariat were removed after government received information from intelligence agencies about the presence of armed men in the area.
He added that the private militia had turned the neighbourhood into a no-go area. Informing about cases being filed against a few senior PAT leaders for their involvement in the clash with the police, Sanaullah claimed that police were fired at from inside the PAT secretariat. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif telephoned Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif and sought a report of the incident. He also expressed his deep sorrows over the loss of precious lives.
AFP adds: The clash, a rare act of political violence in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's home city, involved supporters of cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri who lives in Canada but is due to come to Pakistan on June 23. He hopes to lead a "peaceful revolution" against the country's parliamentary democracy which he considers corrupt.
The religiously moderate cleric has a large following in country. The violence came as military is engaged in a major offensive against Taliban militants in the restive north-west, and could put political pressure on Sharif's government at a delicate moment.
Police said the clashes began when they went to remove what they called illegal security barricades from the office of Qadri's Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT), in the Model Town suburb on Monday night. "When police arrived to remove illegal encroachments, party workers started pelting stones and threw petrol bombs from the roof," the city police chief Chaudhry Shafiq told AFP. Shafiq said the deaths resulted from "bullets fired by workers, not police".
An AFP photographer at the scene saw police fire tear gas and charge protesters with canes, bloodying many including old men. Shahid Mursaleen, a spokesman for the party, accused Prime Minister Sharif of having a direct hand in the killings. "These killings have been made on the orders of Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif. We will register police cases against Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and their team," he said.
"We are a peaceful party but if such brutal acts by the government continue, our workers will come on roads and then they will get out of Doctor Qadri's control," he added. The killings also sparked protests by PAT supporters in Multan, where they burnt tyres at the city's main Ali Chowk intersection.