By Asghar Ali Mubarak
ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said on Thursday that Pakistan would face an ouster from relationships with the European Union, if the country expelled French Ambassador on the demands of the proscribed group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).
The Minister was talking to media after having detailed meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad to discuss law and order and political situations in the country. “If anyone, including the Pakistan Democratic Movement and PTI tried to take law in their hands, the officials would take action against them. If they their protest remained peaceful, nobody would object to it,” said Rashid.
He was speaking against the backdrop of growing number of protestors as they were staging a sit-in in Lahore against the detention of the party’s chief and son of late Khadim Hussain Rizvi, Saad Rizvi. Taking to Twitter, a social media user tweeted a video in which the TLP supporters were chanting party slogans. “Mobile internet service has been suspended in parts of Lahore on orders of the Interior Ministry in light of the ongoing TLP sit-in on Multan Road,” read the tweet.
The Ministry of Interior sent a letter to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority approving the blockade of internet services in various areas of Lahore for maintaining “law and order” situation. It is pertinent to mention that Rizvi is detained by the Punjab government since April 12 for maintenance of public order. Initially the TLP chief was detained for three months. Later the detention extended under the Anti-Terrorist Act on July 10.
A federal review board is scheduled to take up the government’s reference against Saad on Oct 23.
Meanwhile, banned TLP announced on Thursday that it will start a “long march” towards Islamabad on Friday, according to a statement issued by the TLP media cell.
“The peaceful Namoos-i-Risalat march of the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan towards Islamabad will start after Friday prayers” from the TLP’s markaz (headquarters), the statement said, adding that the group also had a “plan B” in case its members were stopped from marching on the capital.
Hundreds of TLP workers have been participating in a sit-in in Lahore to exert pressure on the Punjab government for the release of its chief, Hafiz Saad Hussain Rizvi, the son of its late founder Khadim Rizvi. The younger Rizvi has been kept in detention by the Punjab government since April 12 for “maintenance of public order”.
