Pakistan’s army silent as Islamists, police clash again

Islamist party activists yesterday clashed with Pakistani security forces for a second day outside the capital, Islamabad, burning vehicles before withdrawing into an uneasy stand-off at a protest camp they have occupied for two weeks, police said.

Despite orders from the civilian government to the army on Saturday night to help restore order, no troops were at the scene around the protest camp in Faizabad, on the outskirts of the capital, witnesses said.

The military’s press department did not respond to queries about the government’s order.According to media reports at least six people were killed on the previous day, when several thousand police and paramilitary forces tried to disperse the religious hardliners, who have blocked the main route into the capital demanding that the law minister be fired for committing blasphemy.

About 150 people were wounded in Saturday’s clashes, hospitals reported, and police superintendent Amir Niazi said 80 members of the security forces were among those casualties. Reuters could not confirm that there had been any deaths.

Yesterday baton-armed supporters of the Tehreek-e-Labaik party blocked several main highways, roads and arteries in major Pakistani cities, paralyzing traffic and daily life.

“We have orders just to contain them,” Islamabad’s Assistant City Police Commissioner Mohammad Ali said.Smoke billowed from the charred remains of a car and three motorcycles burned that morning near the Faizabad protest camp, where several thousand Tehreek-e-Labaik activists have gathered in defiance of the government.

After the early morning clashes, the area settled into an uneasy standoff. The paramilitary Rangers force – which had held back from Saturday’s confrontation – was in charge of yesterday’s operations, officers said.

“We still don’t have orders to launch an operation. We will act as the government orders us,” said Rangers commander at the scene Colonel Bilal, who gave only one name. “We have surrounded the protesters from all sides. We can move in when the government orders us.”

Activists from Tehreek-e-Labaik have blocked the main road into the capital for two weeks, accusing the law minister of blasphemy over a wording change in electoral law the party says weakens the Islamic tenet of Mohammad as God’s final prophet.

Led by cleric Khadim Hussain Rizvi, Labaik is one of two new ultra-religious political movements that became prominent in recent months. Labaik, which campaigns on defending Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws, won a surprisingly strong 6 percent and 7.6 percent of the vote in two recent by-elections.

While Islamist parties are unlikely to win a majority they could play a major role in elections that must be held by the summer of next year.

Tehreek-e-Laibak was born out of a protest movement lionizing Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab province who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to reform strict blasphemy laws. Party leader Rizvi called Qadri, who was executed last year, “a hero” in a September interview with Reuters.

Yesterday afternoon, private TV stations that had been ordered off the air the day before were broadcasting again. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube remained blocked in many areas.

The ruling party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif – who was disqualified by the Supreme Court in July and is facing a corruption trial – has a fraught history with the military, which in 1999 launched a coup to oust Sharif from an earlier term.