PESHAWAR, Feb 19: Activists of religious parties and militant outfits spearheaded vandalism on Wednesday in protests against cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), say official sources.

“State agencies have visuals showing religious activists rioting, looting and damaging public and private property,” said a senior official. The Wednesday’s riots left three people dead and about 80 wounded.

Officials said the situation had been discussed at a coordination committee meeting. Senior officials of the police department and other law enforcement agencies attended the meeting.

Police have arrested over 400 people, including schoolchildren, and charged most of them under the Anti Terrorism Act, 1997.

A high-ranking police official confided to Dawn that they were facing difficulty in pursuing these cases and arresting activists of religious groups due to pressure from the provincial government.

He said there was a possibility that even the arrested persons would be released by the courts concerned on bail in near future, as there were no proper evidence against them and in the post-riot scenario, Afghan nationals might be the main target of the police.

The sources said police had arrested about 48 Afghans from different parts of the city, but had not charged them in any case.

They said the activists of Shabab-i-Milli, a sister organisation of Jamaat-i-Islami, some banned outfits and a number of Afghan refugees were largely blamed for the riots in the city.

Chief of Shabab-i-Milli Abdul Ghafar, when approached, denied the involvement of his organisation’s workers in the riots, saying that his organisation had not organised the rally.

“Our organisation strongly condemned such activities and we never incited people to destroy property,” he said.

City Nazim Haji Ghulam Ali said the police had been directed to identify rioters and take severe action against them.

Mr Ali said a security plan had been extensively discussed with police officials, but he also had opposed the imposition of Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the city.