ISLAMABAD: Violence returned to the Constitution Avenue after two weeks when anti-government protesters clashed with the police enforcing Section 144 restrictions at the month-long PAT and PTI sit-ins on Tuesday.

Police claimed the clashes continued for two hours as protesters attacked the Supreme Court building and policemen who were arresting the violators of the public safety law.

Tension had been building up there since Friday when police set up new pickets around the Red Zone and started questioning and hauling up the participants of the sit-ins for violating the ban on pillion riding and assembly of more than five persons at public places. It burst into clashes Tuesday morning after a night of mass arrests.

Police claim a group of protesters rushed out of the sit-ins on hearing that some activists had been arrested near Nadra headquarters, but were intercepted and baton charged by the police outside the Prime Minister’s Secretariat.

Police claimed the protesters were armed with sticks, stones and slings and retreated towards Radio Pakistan building. They attacked the police who went after them there.

Police officers said that while the police contingents deployed at different places in the Red Zone were preparing for the widening conflict, some protesters “stormed” the Supreme Court and broke lights and surveillance cameras in its reception area.

Police claimed the attackers ignored calls from PTI and PAT leadership to return to their sit-ins. Eventually, reinforcements arrived and the police forcibly drove out the fighting protesters from the Supreme Court and into the D-Chowk.

Police have registered a case against unnamed protesters for attacking the Supreme Court and police personnel.

Media coordinator of PAT Ghulam Ali, however, denied that the protesters involved in the clashes belonged to his party.

“It all happened between PTI workers and police. They had seized a policeman for teasing a woman which led to the clashes,” he told Dawn.

PTI MNA Asad Umar said his party workers were infuriated by the large scale arrests of their colleagues over the past few days. “The police raid houses and pick up people from vehicles on the pretext of violation of Section 144,” he added.

Many of those picked up were being shifted from one police station to another without being formally charged, he said, insisting that police beating of the PTI workers rounded up last night instigated the clashes.

He condemned the attack on the Supreme Court, saying any PTI member found involved in the act would be expelled from the party.

PTI’s media coordinator Chaudhry Rizwan insisted that party activists attacked no building. “Our activists were at the Parliament House from where our MPA from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa brought them back to the sit-in area,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2014