After TLP’s third pact with govt…: Normalcy starts returning to Lahore, other parts of country

LAHORE: Normality began returning in the country, especially in Lahore, on Tuesday night after eight days of violent clashes between Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) protestors and police, as the religious group activists ended their last sit-in at Multan Road in front of its head office, Masjid-e-Rehmatul Lil Alameen.

It opened the road for vehicular traffic, following signing of another agreement with the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government earlier Monday morning.

TLP Vice President Dr Shafiq Ameeni, heading a three-member negotiating team, held talks with the detained party chief Hafiz Saad Rizvi Monday night. He later announced that sit-in was being ended, blockades being removed and asked the party workers to go home after the government tabled a resolution in the National Assembly, as decided in the agreement.

The protests and clashes had left over two dozen dead including four policemen. These clashes erupted last week when the TLP workers blocked many main roads in big cities over sudden arrest of party chief Saad Rizvi.

Dr Ameeni directed the party workers to remain peaceful and wait for implementation of other points of the agreement, saying positive progress was being made in that regard. He advised them not to respond to the provocative campaign on the social media and remain watchful against such moves to incite violence.

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, who headed the government side in the talks with the TLP chief Saad Rizvi, read out the agreement in a tweet message in the morning, saying that it was decided that the government would table a resolution in the parliament to decide the issue of expelling French ambassador. The TLP workers would end the sit-ins and remove road blockades, especially at the Multan Road in Lahore, cases against the TLP leadership and workers, including their inclusion in fourth schedule and the clamping of ban would be withdrawn in due course of time and their detained workers would be released.

Religious Affairs Minister Noorul Haq Qadri, advisor to PM Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi, Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat and other officials also participated in talks.

Another religious leader, Allama Jalil Sharaqpuri, who was among the eight-member delegation of scholars, who held talks with Saad Rizvi in Kot Lakhpat Jail on the previous day, told the media that Saad Rizvi and TLP Majlis-e-Shura had agreed that they would accept and abide by the decision of the parliament.

When asked if the TLP Shura had agreed to accept the parliament’s decision even if it decided not to expel the French ambassador, he replied in affirmative. A member of the government side in the talks told the media that the issues of releasing Saad Rizvi, lifting of ban on the party and removing its leaders from fourth schedule would be decided by the courts, which is the right forum for the purpose. The government had agreed with the TLP six months ago that the French ambassador would be expelled by tabling the matter in the parliament. But, later it refused to do so despite seeking extensions in the deadline twice from the TLP. The violence escalated on Sunday as police opened fire on protestors, killing at least three and wounding dozens of others at Lahore’s Multan Road.

The killings prompted top religious leaders in the country to call shutter-down and wheel-jam strike for Monday, which saw a successful strike in all major cities of the country as wholesale and big markets remained closed.