Islamabad: Pakistan government has released 350 activists of the banned outfit Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), interior minister Sheikh Rashid has announced.
The TLP workers have been holding violent protests across the nation, especially in Lahore, against the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan for not releasing their party chief Saad Hussain Rizvi.
The opposition parties and the proscribed outfit had staged separate protests in multiple cities of the country, resulting in Islamabad, Lahore, and Rawalpindi being partially shut down. Three policemen and seven TLP workers have died in the clashes so far.
“We have released 350 TLP workers up to now and we are still waiting to open both sides of the road of Muridke as per the decision with the TLP”, the interior minister tweeted after leading a government team in negotiations with representatives of the TLP, including Rizvi, its detained chief, in Islamabad.
Rasheed said that talks between the government and the TLP after they threatened to march towards Islamabad have been successful.
The interior minister said that the government will withdraw cases registered against the activists of TLP soon, the report added.
However, a TLP Shura member claimed the interior minister had sought time till the return of Prime Minister Khan who is currently on an official visit to Saudi Arabia, Dawn News reported.
TLP’s founder late Khadim Rizvi’s son Saad Hussain Rizvi has been detained by the Punjab government since April last under the ‘maintenance of public order’ (MPO) following the party’s protest against the blasphemous caricatures of Islam’s Prophet published in France and its demand that the French ambassador be sent back and import of goods from that country be banned.
Subsequently, the TLP agreed to call off protests across the country on the Pakistan government’s assurance that it would present a resolution on the expulsion of the French ambassador in the National Assembly.
