ISLAMABAD: An anti-terrorism court in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Saturday granted bail to several leaders of the banned Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) religious political party, local media reported.
TLP began a protest march last month calling for the release of the group’s leader Hafiz Saad Hussain Rizvi, who has been under arrest since April. The group also wants the expulsion of France’s ambassador over the publication of anti-Islam caricatures in a French satirical magazine last year.
Last Sunday, the group reached a deal with the government, ending more than a week of clashes with police that left at least six policemen dead and scores injured on both sides. The details of the pact have not been shared with the public by either side but it has been widely reported that the agreement includes a commitment by the government to release TLP leaders and supporters who are under arrest.
Cases were registered against several TLP leaders following the latest round of violent protests.
“Those who were granted bail included Maulana Farooqul Hassan, Ghulam Ghaus Baghdadi, Pir Zahirul Hassan, Maulana Sharifuddin, Engineer Hafeezullah Alvi, Maulana Abdul Razzaq, Mohammad Badar Munir, Qari Ashraf, Mohammad Akbar, Muzaffar Hussain, Mohammad Umar and Muzammil Hussain,” Dawn reported. “The court directed all the TLP leaders to submit bail bonds of Rs100,000 each.”
The government’s special prosecutor Abdul Rauf Watoo argued against the granting of bail.
TLP was founded in 2015 to tackle actions it considers blasphemous to Islam and has mounted multiple protest marches marred by bloodshed that have twice brought Islamabad to a standstill.
The government banned TLP in April this year after violent protests by the group in which at least six policemen were killed and 800 people were injured, according to government figures. After the protests, the government also agreed to have a parliamentary vote on kicking out the French ambassador but backtracked, with Prime Minister Imran Khan saying to take such action would isolate Pakistan internationally.
This Thursday, the provincial government of Punjab sent a summary to the provincial cabinet seeking its approval to lift the ban on TLP as early as possible: “If the opinion/approval will not be received from any minister in three days, it shall be deemed that the minister has accepted the recommendations contained in the summary,” the document read.
“Some 2,100 TLP activists have been released from police custody after the federal government-TLP agreement, the revocation of the group’s proscribed status will automatically remove around 8,000 TLP activists from the Fourth Schedule — a list on which suspects of terrorism and sectarianism are placed under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997,” Dawn said.
