LAHORE, Feb 14: Punjab PPP President Qasim Zia holds the government responsible for the trouble witnessed in Lahore on Tuesday. Talking to journalists here, he said the protest was peaceful but the government had deliberately made it violent to create justification for imposing emergency and delaying the general elections, due for 2007.

He said people had turned against the rulers and they would throw them out.

Former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif phoned various party leaders in Lahore to get information about the tragic incidents that took place in the city on Tuesday.

PML-N Secretary-General Zaeem Qadri condemned the elements who sabotaged the peaceful protest against the blasphemous sketches published by newspapers of various Western countries.

Qadri told reporters that his party had taken part in the protest but it opposed the damage caused to the public and private property. Miscreants, he alleged, had tried to make the protest controversial.