Violent anti-U.S. protests in Pak. cities

By B. Muralidhar Reddy

ISLAMABAD, OCT. 8. There were disturbing reports from different parts of Pakistan as pro-Taliban elements took to the streets and, in some places, turned violent in protest against the retaliatory strikes against Afghanistan launched by the U.S. and Britain on Sunday night.

Even as the Pakistan President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, asserted that a vast majority of the people were with the decision of his Government and that the administrative was fully geared up to meet any eventuality, hundreds of protesters tried to march up to the U.S. Embassy here.

Police here had anxious moments as the protesters, marching through the main thoroughfare raised slogans against the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, and vowed to resist the retaliatory strikes.

In Quetta, capital of Baluchistan, one person died where 10,000 to 15,000 radical students and members of the hardline Islamic groups burnt cinemas, a police and fire station, a shopping plaza and a UNICEF building.

Reports said that chanting `Down with America' and `Death to President Bush', the crowds smashed the windscreens of cars and threw stones at police, who responded with volleys of teargas shells.

Army personnel carriers were deployed and foreign journalists were confined to their hotel rooms for safety. Another rally of 10,000 people was held at the border crossing of Chaman, 100 km northwest of Quetta.

News agency reports said police burst teargas shells in Peshawar as they tried to disperse 1,500 slogan-shouting protesters. The demonstrators, led mainly by Afghans, had gathered outside the Ahhaqina mosque in the Khyber Bazaar to denounce Washington's action and shouted: `Bush is a dog', `Long live Osama'.

The demonstrators, mostly supporters of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) party, pelted stones on police and pushed foreigners away from the city's mosques. The Musharraf Government has kept the JUI faction leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, under house arrest after he was accused of making a provocative speech in Rawalpindi on Saturday.

The Pakistan Foreign Office issued a statement expressing regret over the attacks against the offices of the U.N. relief organisations in Quetta. ``It is unfortunate that the U.N. agencies providing humanitarian assistance to Afghan refugees in Pakistan have been targeted. To prevent the recurrence of today's incidents, the Government has tightened security arrangements around U.N. offices in Quetta and other cities of Pakistan.''

In a related development the Jamat-e-Islami chief, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, terming American attacks on Afghanistan as an act of cowardice and display of moral bankruptcy, has urged the Pakistan Government to withdraw immediately from cooperating in the action.

He urged the Musharraf regime to call immediately a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Countries. He appealed to Muslims all over the world to hold demonstrations against the U.S. and condemn this ``act of cowardice''. The U.S. would have to face the consequences. The JUI(S) chief, Maulana Samiul Haq, said the U.S. had committed a disastrous blunder by attacking Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Maulana Samiul Haq, who were placed under house arrest on Sunday, were released due to the increasing tension in various cities. Both the factions had announced that protest rallies, which were to be held on October 9 and 12 against their arrest, would be converted into anti-U.S. rallies.

The chief of his faction of the Jamiat Ulemai Pakistan (JUP), Maulana Shah Ahmad Noorani, said no foreign soldier landing in Pakistan for attacking Afghanistan would be spared. Addressing a Jehad seminar in Lahore, he said Afghanistan would prove to be the graveyard of the American forces.

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Section  : International
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