MULTAN, 10 November — Pakistani police opened fire on demonstrators, leaving four dead, during protests yesterday that failed to trigger a national outpouring against the US military campaign in Afghanistan.
Demonstrations across the country were smaller than radical groups had sought as the government of President Pervez Musharraf clamped down on opposition to his backing for the US strikes.
Four activists were killed and six wounded when police and demonstrators exchanged fire after protesters took over a major highway and railway in response to the general strike call by pro-Taleban parties.
Demonstrators took four policemen hostage and security forces opened fire in a bid to retrieve them after tear gas and baton charges had failed, police said.
A police official said 5,000 members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) party and other radical groups, some armed with automatic rifles, stopped and burned a prison van, taking four police officers hostage.
Demonstrators then blocked the Indus Highway and nearby railway at Shahdan Lund, some 500 kilometers southwest of Islamabad.
Boulders were laid across the tracks to stop the Chiltan Express from Lahore to Quetta early in the morning and 500 demonstrators sat on the tracks, police said.
"We had planned a peaceful protest but police resorted to firing as part of the government’s brutal policy aimed at appeasing the United States," said JUI Secretary-General Abdul Ghafoor Haideri.
"Our movement against American terrorism in Afghanistan will continue. Our protest will continue until the government of Pakistan changes its policy or Musharraf is overthrown."
He said more than 5,000 workers of different member parties of the pro-Taleban Afghan Defense Council (ADC) had been arrested during the past 24 hours.
An Interior Ministry official said more than 550 religious activists were detained across the nation in a bid to avert troubles that were threatened after Friday prayers in mosques.
In the northwestern city of Peshawar, police fired tear gas and baton-charged some 200 stone-throwing demonstrators. Similar disturbances were reported in Lahore and several areas of Karachi, the country’s biggest city.
Thousands of police and paramilitary forces were deployed in major cities. Musharraf is abroad but he warned in a special message released yesterday that the security agencies were determined to prevent unrest.
"Ours has been a very tolerant government. We believe in full freedom of expression and we lay value on democracy," said the army general.
He added: "We cannot act as silent spectators nor would the people like us to be bystanders. "We shall employ all that is required to keep Pakistan peaceful, stable and secure."
