LAHORE: As many as 860 activists and supporters of the proscribed Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party detained at prisons across Punjab were released on Tuesday, the provincial Home Department said.
But the department clarified the list included only those detainees who weren’t wanted in police cases, and were arrested during crackdowns on the protests. “Those facing cases are not being released,” it said.
According to a report, the government also decided to withdraw its appeal filed against the release of TLP leader Saad Rizvi. The government had earlier challenged the order of a Lahore High Court (LHC) bench regarding Rizvi’s release.
The development came days after the government and the radical party reached an agreement to end the 10-day long — and at times deadly violent — protest calling for the closure of the French embassy and the release of the party chief Saad Hussain Rizvi.
However, neither Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who represented the government during the talks, nor religious leader Mufti Muneebur Rehman, who took part in the dialogue on behalf of the group, gave any details of the agreement.
Thousands of supporters of the party marched from Lahore on October 22 toward Islamabad. They demanded the expulsion of the French envoy to Pakistan over the publication of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.) in France.
The protest march saw supporters clash with police at several points along the way. At least eight police officers and four demonstrators were killed.
Addressing the press conference on Sunday, Rehman said a steering committee headed by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan also comprising Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat, the federal interior secretary and Punjab home secretary, besides TLP representatives Mufti Ghulam Ghous Baghdadi and Engineer Hafeez Ullah Alvi would oversee the implementation of the agreement.
The committee met in Lahore Monday to oversee the implementation of the agreement.
Reports citing people familiar with the development said the decision to release the detainees was taken during the second meeting of the committee on Tuesday.
In the first phase, the activists who were not directly involved in violence were released, the sources said. These people were taken into custody to avoid any untoward law and order situation.
They were released after scrutiny was completed, Basharat said, adding that workers against whom first information reports (FIRs) were registered would have to obtain bail from courts.
The minister, however, said it was yet to be decided whether protestors who were arrested under Section 16 of the Maintenance of Public Order, 1960, would also be released.
The party called off its march to the capital on Monday and ended its occupation of GT Road highway after reaching the deal with the government, following more than a week of clashes that left seven policemen dead.
“We have called off our march to Islamabad after reaching an agreement with the government,” Sajjad Saifi, a spokesman for the TLP, told AFP.
“Our supporters have moved to the nearby park and until 50 percent of terms are fulfilled we will stay here,” Saifi added.
The TLP claimed 14 of its supporters were killed and scores injured.
The group has been behind major anti-France protests that earlier this year led to the French embassy issuing a warning for all its citizens to leave the country.
Several thousand supporters had begun a stop-start march from Lahore to Islamabad, reaching about one-third of the way.
Rizvi’s party started demanding the expulsion of the French envoy in October 2020 after France President Emmanuel Macron defended blasphemous caricatures as freedom of expression.
Macron’s comments came after a young man beheaded a French school teacher who had shown the caricatures in class. The images were republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to mark the opening of the trial over the deadly 2015 attack against the publication for the original caricatures.
The party gained prominence in the 2018 general elections, campaigning on the single issue of defending the blasphemy law, which calls for the death penalty for anyone who insults Islam or the prophet.
