Anti-Islam film protests: 9 PML-N activists booked for rioting, no arrests made yet

Party claims it is being victimised and the cases were lodged to discourage them from political activities in Karachi.

KARACHI:

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is unhappy that cases have been lodged against its activists who protested against the anti-Islam film on Friday, when mobs ransacked banks and cinemas in downtown Karachi.

A total of 29 suspects in general who were implicated in the September 21 riots have been handed to the police for questioning by anti-terrorism court judges till October 8. Nine FIRs have been registered against PML-N men at the Jackson police station but no arrests have been made yet. Some sections include murder charges. The party believes this was done to discourage them from political activities in the city.

The PML-N group of protesters was led by Asif Khan, the party’s Karachi youth wing president. He told The Express Tribune that around 3,000 people from Keamari town participated, including party activists. He parried questions about the exact number of party men present.

The PML-N has preferred to hold the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party responsible for the registration of the FIRs and called them “false cases”. “The false cases against our people were lodged at the behest of the government,” said the party’s provincial secretary general Saleem Zia on Tuesday. He reasoned that the PPP “was feeling threatened by [the PML-N’s] rising popularity in Sindh”. The party has no elected representatives in the Sindh Assembly.

Furthermore, Asif Khan maintained that their protest was a peaceful one. They assembled at Keamari, which leads to the US consulate. Khan said that the protestors had walked all the way to Native Jetty bridge without creating any chaos. “When we were at the bridge, another rally, of miscreants came behind us. Those men hurled stones and burned tyres, but we weren’t with them.”

Khan said that as a result of the mob violence, the police opened fired at them and killed two of their activists. “The police knew who the criminals were but instead registered cases against us,” he told The Express Tribune. “I had my two children with me. Had I been a rioter, I wouldn’t have taken them with me.”

The party argued that there were killings in the city each day but none of those murderers were caught, and instead the government was targeting peaceful protesters.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th, 2012.