ISLAMABAD: Merely hours after signing a peace agreement with the Pakistani government, the proscribed Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party on Monday refused to call off its week-long protest until the release of its chief, who has been in jail since April for inciting violence against the state.
Thousands of protesters, who are currently camped in Wazirabad, a city some 190 kilometers from the federal capital, will stay put in a park in the city until the government meets at least half of their demands agreed in the peace deal.
The government on Sunday signed the agreement with the TLP in a bid to end the protests that paralyzed parts of the country. Details of the pact were not explicitly shared with the public by either side.
But the government has already constituted a steering committee under State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan to chalk out a strategy to ensure the release of Rizvi and removal of the ban on his party.
“This dharna (sit-in) will be called off completely after the release of Saad Rizvi,” Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, TLP's chief negotiator who apparently helped reach the agreement, told protesters in Wazirabad as he shared details of talks with the government.
The protest would continue in a nearby park in the city “until the government will fulfill at least fifty percent of the demands,” he said.
The outlawed group has announced reopening the Grand Trunk Road for traffic from Monday, which it had closed four days ago.
The TLP has been demanding the release of its chief and the expulsion of the French envoy over the publication of caricatures of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) in France last year. The government proscribed the party in April for inciting violence against the state and it is now pushing the government to lift the ban on it.
“The word ‘proscribed’ with the TLP will be removed and the process may take a week,” Rehman said, while referring to the agreement signed with the government. “The agreement will be implemented [by the government] in letter and spirit.”
“We will come back with full might,” the cleric warned the government, if it dared back out of its commitments with the group.
The TLP began a long march towards Islamabad from Lahore on October 22 after violent clashes with law enforcement personnel killed two policemen. Two more policemen were killed and several others injured in similar incidents in Muridke and Sadhoke as the protesters forced their way past barricades and hurdles toward the capital.
Shortly after announcing the agreement with the TLP, the government released two members of the group’s advisory council (majlis-e-shura), Dr Mohammad Shafiq Amini and Pir Syed Zaheerul Hassan Shah, who joined the rest at the Wazirabad sit-in.
“This agreement [with the government] will be considered null and void, if any of the [TLP] members or a leader is arrested from today onwards,” Rehman said.
He urged TLP activists to stay united, saying: “This is the start of our journey, not the end.”
