KARACHI: Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) on Monday called off its protest sit-in in Punjab's Wazirabad city, asking supporters to head back to its Lahore headquarters, TLP said, a day after the religious political party was unbanned by the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan following an agreement with the group.
TLP began a protest march to Islamabad last month calling for the release of its leader Saad Hussain Rizvi, who has been under arrest since April. The group also called for the expulsion of France’s ambassador over the publication of anti-Islam caricatures in a French satirical magazine last year.
On October 31, 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 were not shared with the public but it was widely reported that the agreement included a commitment by the government to release TLP leaders and supporters and lift a ban on the party.
On Sunday, the interior minister announced the party was no more on a list of banned groups.
Sajjad Saifi, TLP media coordinator, said the sit-in had been "transferred" from Wazirabad, a city some 210 kilometers from Islamabad, to Masjid Rehmatul-lil-Aalameen in Lahore and it would be completely called off only once the government implemented all points of the agreement.
“About 50 percent of the agreement has been implemented and two of our major demands have been fulfilled,” Sajjad told Arab News, explaining that the demands were the removal of a ban on the group and striking the names of its leaders and workers from the Fourth Schedule, a listing of militant suspects under a terrorism law.
“These were two major problems. The declaration of proscribed and enlisting of our workers and leaders in the Fourth Schedule were making huge problems for us,” Sajjad said.
“But we will completely end our sit-in once all points of the agreement are implemented and our leader Saad Rizvi is released,” Sajjad said.
In a video message shared with media, TLP leader Syed Sarwar Shah Saifi was also seen asking workers to move to Masjid Rahmatul-lil-Aalameen in Lahore.
“We are not going to our homes,” Sarwar told workers, adding that Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, who last week met Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa on behalf of the TLP ahead of the government’s agreement with the group, had asked them to move back to Lahore after 50 percent of their demands were met.
Sarwar told workers TLP chief Saad Rizvi would be released and join them on the first death anniversary of TLP founder Khadim Hussain Rizvi on November 19.
As part of the peace deal, the government has already released at least 2,000 arrested workers of the proscribed group, though Saad Rizvi still remains in jail pending a decision by the Lahore High Court.
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 such an action would isolate Pakistan internationally.
Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan asks supporters to call off Wazirabad sit-in after ban on party lifted
https://arab.news/brd6b
Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan asks supporters to call off Wazirabad sit-in after ban on party lifted
- Religious political group asks supporters to leave Wazirabad, gather at Lahore headquarters until release of party chief
- TLP reached peace agreement with government on October 31, was banned last April after days of violent clashes
Air pollution cuts average Pakistani life expectancy by 3.9 years — report
- Pakistan’s first city-level emissions mapping links smog to transport and industry
- Lahore residents could gain up to 5.8 years of life with cleaner air, report says
ISLAMABAD: Air pollution is shortening the lives of millions of Pakistanis, reducing average life expectancy by almost four years and up to six years in smog-choked cities like Lahore, according to a new national assessment.
The study, titled Unveiling Pakistan’s Air Pollution and published by the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative (PAQI) this week, includes Pakistan’s first multi-sector, city-level emissions mapping, ending years of speculation over what drives the country’s chronic smog.
Researchers identified transport, industry, brick kilns, power generation and crop burning as Pakistan’s largest contributors of PM2.5, which is hazardous fine particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers wide that penetrates deep into the lungs and bloodstream, increasing the risk of heart disease, lung cancer and early death. The dominant sources varied by city, giving a data-based picture of pollution patterns for the first time.
The report calls particulate pollution the country’s most damaging environmental hazard.
“Pollution reduces the life expectancy of an average Pakistani by 3.9 years,” the report states, noting the impact is more severe than food insecurity.
“Particulate pollution is the greatest external threat to life expectancy in the country. While particulate pollution takes 3.3 years off the life expectancy of an average Pakistani resident, child and maternal malnutrition, and dietary risks reduce life expectancy by 2.4 and 2.1 years, respectively.”
The report findings suggest major health gains would follow even modest pollution cuts.
“In Lahore, the country’s second most populous city, residents could gain 5.8 years of life expectancy,” it notes, if air quality met global safety standards.
Beyond health, the study frames smog as an economic and governance crisis. Researchers argue that Pakistan’s response has focused on optics like temporary shutdowns, anti-smog “sprays” and road-washing rather than long-term emissions control, vehicle regulation or industrial monitoring.
The assessment characterises pollution as an invisible national burden:
“Poor air quality is Pakistan’s most universal tax, paid by every child and elder with every breath.”
Pakistan regularly ranks among the world’s most polluted countries, with Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Faisalabad repeatedly classified as high-toxicity zones during winter. The new mapping highlights how industrial output, diesel trucking, unregulated kiln firing, and seasonal stubble burning drive smog cycles, knowledge the authors say should guide enforceable policy rather than short-term bans.
The report concludes that reducing PM2.5 remains the single most powerful health intervention available to Pakistan, with improvements likely to deliver life expectancy gains faster than nutrition, sanitation or infectious-disease efforts.
