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Qadri, more than 350 supporters booked for rioting

Police in Rawalpindi and Islamabad on Tuesday produced dozens of arrested workers of the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) before anti-terrorism courts in the twin cities and secured their judicial remand for rioting, attacking policemen and damaging public property on the occasion of arrival of their leader Allama Dr Tahirul Qadri on Monday.

Qadri’s plane was diverted to Lahore and not allowed to land at Islamabad airport. He did not let passengers leave the plane for nearly eight hours until governors of Punjab and Sindh intervened and persuaded him to leave the plane under threat of possible legal action by the UAE airline.

Police said over 350 workers, including Qadri himself and baton wielding activists, have been booked. Scores of policemen were injured and admitted to hospitals in both the cities.

At least 48 policemen were injured in the twin cities early on Monday morning when enraged activists of the PAT pelted them with stones and used batons.

Qadri vowed to avenge the killing of nearly 13 PAT workers allegedly due to police firing in Lahore on Sunday. He said he would not talk to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif because their hands are soaked in blood.

“We will topple their government and bring about a socio-political revolution in the country,” he said in Lahore. He, however, postponed a projected public rally on city’s main boulevard, The Mall billed for Tuesday.

Meanwhile, seven days after the bloody clashes in Lahore’s Model Town, a man succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday, taking the death toll to 10.

Twenty-year-old Shahbaz was shot in the neck during the June 17 clashes between Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) workers and the police in which more than 100 PAT workers were also injured.

Shahbaz was taken for surgery soon after the incident but his doctor had said that his chances of survival were thin.

Sources said that the PAT worker succumbed to his wounds at 6am on Tuesday, however, hospital sources did not confirm his death.

The victim’s parents said that he was an active PAT supporter and was dedicated to his party. - news@khaleejtimes.com

(With inputs from Online)