Madrassa managers, clerics detained in Lahore crackdown
By Asif Shahzad
LAHORE, Feb 24: Police on Friday rounded up around two dozen clerics and administrators of various religious schools in an attempt to block rallies and processions on the cartoon issue.
Police said the crackdown was launched after the provincial government drew up a list of 113 religious leaders, clerics and activists suspected of trying to foment unrest.
“We have got reports that these men could disturb the law and order,” a police official said in a reference to a list that Lahore police had been handed.
Sources said that two dozen men were seized in raids conducted on seminaries, offices and houses of the leaders and activists. Operations police chief Aamir Zulfikar Khan supervised the operation.
The sources said that the raiding teams had been assigned the task of arresting all 113 people before Saturday morning.
Earlier in the day, police placed under house arrest Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief Qazi Hussein Ahmad for 30 days and arrested around 40 religious parties’ activists in a bid to stop them from holding protests and rallies.
The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) had given a call for protests outside mosques after Friday prayers. However, except for three places nobody dared to come onto the streets, mainly due to a heavy deployment of police commandos and Pakistan Rangers.
“We have got orders from the government to detain the JI Amir. We have conveyed it to him. We want him to follow orders. We will not allow him to leave Mansoora at any cost, nor will we allow him to lead any rally or protest,” Lahore police chief Additional IG Khwaja Khalid Farooq told Dawn. He said the JI Mansoora headquarters had been declared a sub-jail for Mr Ahmad.
Since early morning heavy contingents of Pakistan Rangers and police commandos had surrounded the headquarters and a watch was kept on those leaving or entering the premises. “It is unfair,” a JI spokesman said, referring to the security cordon. “It has paralysed life here because there are dozens of residences and a hospital on the premises.”
Rangers personnel and police commandos were deployed at all important government and foreign offices and installations, places of worship and public places. Over the last few days paramilitary forces have been patrolling various roads.
The police chief said that no permission had been sought by the MMA for the rally it had planned on Sunday.
“We will ensure that nobody violates the ban on rallies and protests. We will uphold the writ of the government. Anybody who dares to violate the ban should be prepared for strict action,” Mr Farooq said.
The city remained largely peaceful and calm and reports reaching here from other parts of the province also reported no untoward incident.
Most of the markets, mainly The Mall and its surroundings, were voluntarily closed by shopkeepers after the Friday prayer.
“It is better not to have business for some hours or for a while in a day than suffering any big loss,” said Sheikh Naseer, a shopkeeper on The Mall.
Some two dozen people gathered outside a mosque on Lawrence Road, but the police quickly dispersed them. On resistance, three people, including an Ahl-i-Hadith leader, were taken into custody.
Another group of around 50 men attempted to offer Friday prayers on a road in Bilal Ganj, Lower Mall. However, the police intervened and had a dialogue with the people, who were also holding a banner and some placards, denouncing the publication of sacrilegious caricatures in some European newspapers. The protesters began to disperse but some of them tried to force shopkeepers to pull down their shutters. Some of the protesters held a police sub-inspector hostage and beat him up, after charging him with entering a nearby mosque with his shoes on.
The police surrounded the protesters and continued to disperse them without use of force, but some of them tried to attack the police. Three dozen people were picked up, bundled into vans and driven to police lock-ups. Three more people were held when they tried to disturb traffic near Chauberji. However, no case was registered against them.
Meanwhile, all entry and exit points of the city were clogged by police, who had set up pickets there to search each and every vehicle. Every suspect, especially bearded people, was denied entry to the city by the police.
