PPP workers take to the streets to protest Punjab governor’s murder

Police officials prohibited from carrying weapons during patrol.

SIALKOT/ GUJRANWALA / MULTAN: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) office bearers have strongly condemned the assassination of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and a series of protests against the murder were witnessed all over southern Punjab on Wednesday.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, PPP Khanpur tehsil president Chaudhry Atta Muhammad and Peoples Labour Bureau chairman Haji Umer Din Qureshi condemned the brutal incident and called it a conspiracy against the party. In Muzaffargarh, PPP workers organized a Fateha Khawani for Taseer at the People’s Secretariat  and a large number of party workers led a protest following the ceremony.

PPP jiyalas in Mandi Bahauddin and Shakargarh protested and in Sialkot, armed workers of the party burnt tyres and protested against the assassination.

“This is a condemnable act and we need to speak up against it in the strongest terms,” said PPP Sialkot general secretary Haji Mushtaw Mughal, adding “Salmaan Taseer stood up for a cause. He wanted the blasphemy law that has victimised minorities to be amended and we support him.”

Protests in many parts of the province turned violent and several skirmishes between party workers and security officials have been reported from Gujranwala and Sialkot. The PPP party workers chanted slogans against the Punjab government and also vandalized public property and misbehaved with citizens. PPP Sialkot additional general secretary Malik Zarar Mehmood said “This is the Punjab government’s conspiracy. They did not provide Taseer with adequate security because he was the biggest threat to their monopoly in the province.”

PPP vice president Imtiaz Ahmed and other party leaders led PPP workers to Allama Iqbal chowk where they burnt tyres and pelted police officials with stones.

Two armed groups of PPP workers also forced shopkeepers to close their shops and vandalized the Kotwali Police Station vehicle. Eyewitnesses said that they saw PPP workers beat up two police officials and forced them to flee the area.
“The police officials didn’t have weapons,” an eyewitness Liaqat said.

In Gujrat the news about the killing of governor spread like wildfire and hundreds of PPP workers took to the streets and shouted slogans.

The jiyalas blamed the Punjab government for the assassination and said that this was the Pakistan Mulsim League-Nawaz’s move to take over power. After the assassination hundreds of PPP workers gathered at Paganwala house, the PPP Raabta office.

In Mandi Bahauddin security was on high alert after the governor’s assassination and heavy contingents of police were deployed on roads and streets. An emergency meeting of PPP Mandi Bahauddin was held under PPP president Dewan Shamim Akhtar and the decision to hold week-long protests was unanimously accepted.

All police force officials deployed to control the crowds in southern Punjab were not issued weapons. Baqir Naqvi, a senior traffic warden, was suspended when a gun was found in his possession during a search operation. The Punjab government also issued orders that no personnel from the elite police force would be deputed for security during the protest rallies as the protesters might attack them.

Security officials said that a detailed report had been ordered regarding all elite force personnel deployed on VIP and VVIP detail. “Regional police officers will collect these reports and submit their findings to the Punjab IG,” a Sialkot security official Kamran Gondal said. During the security arrangements police personnel were only allowed rubber bullets, sticks and weapons for crowd control.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2011.