Pakistani police raided offices and homes of dozens of radical Islamic leaders, putting several under house arrest and detaining hundreds of their associates in a bid to foil a rally planned to take place yesterday in the capital to protest cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, officials said.
But Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a lawmaker and parliamentary opposition leader from the six-party religious coalition that is organizing the rally, vowed it would proceed despite a government ban and police barricades around the capital.
Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the chief of the six-party coalition, was placed under house arrest in the eastern city of Lahore, while other senior leaders in Islamabad were either arrested or asked not to leave their homes.
PHOTO: AP
Mian Maqsood, a spokesman for the coalition, said "hundreds" of Islamic leaders had been arrested, although Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said only about two dozen had been detained to stop the latest protest against the publication of Prophet Mohammed cartoons in Europe and elsewhere.
150 arrested
Chaudhry Shafqaat Ahmed, chief investigator of Lahore police, said about 150 supporters of the coalition and several other religious groups were arrested on Saturday night and another 150 were listed to be arrested.
"These people could create problems of law and order in the city or in Islamabad," Ahmed said.
The arrests came hours after the government warned radical Islamic groups against holding the rally, fearing it would spark more violence after at least five people died in riots across the country over the past week.
Police had set up road blocks into Islamabad yesterday and cars and other vehicles were being checked for supporters of the religious alliance.
Paramilitary troops patrolled the streets in pickup trucks with mounted machine guns, while soldiers barricaded themselves behind sand bags near key government buildings and at an enclave housing foreign embassies, witnesses said.
Rahman, who had not been arrested, described the ban as unconstitutional.
"We do not accept these orders," Rahman said. "I want to make it clear that the protest will be held. The government should take back the ban."
But a government official reiterated yesterday that the rally will not be allowed.
"If five or more than five people gather, they will be arrested," said Mohammed Ali, a senior government administrator in Islamabad.
Militants
Pakistani intelligence officials have said militants from outlawed extremist groups have been stirring up the visolence. Authorities have also banned demonstrations in several cities in the country's east, where riots turned deadly last week.
The cartoons offend Muslims because Islamic tradition bars drawings of Mohammed, favorable or otherwise, in a policy to discourage idolatry.
The drawings were first published in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, and reprinted by European media outlets that insist they're exercising their right to free speech.
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