Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan’s (TLP) leadership cadre from South Punjab on Friday announced their disassociation from the proscribed religiopolitical party in the wake of the ban imposed on the group for violence and rioting.

The interior ministry notified the ban on the TLP last week, saying that the federal government had “reasonable grounds” to believe the religiopolitical party was connected to terrorism.

“The Pakistan Army is under threat from the East and the West,” said one leader. “TLP, the party which we were part of, gave calls for marches and protests because of which our state and army had to deal with an internal war along with foreign threats.”

Referring to Pakistan’s brief but intense military escalation with India in May, he said calls for protest by TLP during that time also worked in the enemy’s favour.

Elaborating further, he said the party is systematically benefiting the enemies of the country, which is why “we’ve decided to separate ourselves from TLP.”

He added that terrorists from the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have also shown their support for the TLP in a video statement released earlier.

The ban came a day after the federal cabinet approved a proposal to proscribe the group under the anti-terrorism act, days after nationwide protests over Gaza claimed the lives of several protesters and police officers and paralysed major highways and city roads from Karachi to Islamabad.

The group currently only has a single seat in the Punjab Assembly, held by Mehmood Ahmad for PP-55 (Narowal-ii).

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on a proposal from the Punjab government. A statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) after the meeting said the ban was “unanimously” approved by the federal cabinet.

The interior ministry briefed the cabinet on what it called the TLP’s “violent and terrorist activities”, stressing that the organisation had repeatedly incited unrest across the country.

The group, founded in 2015 as a movement, turned into a political party in 2016. It was previously banned by the PTI government in 2021 after violent protests. The interior ministry informed the cabinet that the 2021 ban on TLP was lifted after six months on the assurance that it would refrain from violence. It added that the current ban on TLP stemmed from its reneging on those guarantees.