ISLAMABAD, 16 February 2006 — Three people, including an eight-year-old boy, were killed in Pakistan yesterday as violent protests spiraled against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), leaving Western businesses in flames.
Two people died in northwestern Peshawar city when police fired tear gas and shot in the air to quell around 50,000 demonstrators who torched a KFC outlet and trashed a Norwegian mobile phone company’s offices.
Riots also flared for a second day in the historic eastern city of Lahore, where another person was killed, and in at least half a dozen other towns across the world’s second most populous Muslim nation.
Officials said more than 70 people including a policeman were wounded in the violence, sparked by the printing of the caricatures in a Danish newspaper in September and later in other Western countries, including Norway.
As the cartoon unrest surged President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz appealed for calm and restraint.
Musharraf vowed that the government would curb anti-social and criminal elements trying to exploit anti-cartoon rallies.
“Violent protests are negatively impacting the country’s economy, civic amenities and creating undue hindrance in the normal life of peaceful citizens,” Musharraf said.
Earlier, Musharraf called Aziz and the security chief at his Rawalpindi Camp Office and reviewed the overall law and order situation.
The president directed security chiefs to protect public and private property.
A citizen of Islamabad Dr. Nasir Ali filed a writ before the Supreme Court making an appeal to the apex court to take suo moto action against the Internet for circulating Danish cartoons.
Later in the evening, sensing the gravity of the situation the prime minister himself attended the ongoing session of the National Assembly.
He listened to angry speeches from members from both sides and then took the floor.
“The question is not why we should not protest. We should protest but in a manner that it should be registered in a civilized manner. My government cannot allow destruction of property, arson and killings of innocent Muslims,” he said.
Yesterday’s deaths brought the toll from the cartoon protests in Pakistan to five.
Mobs rampaged through Peshawar’s dusty streets, torching two cinemas, petrol pumps and a police van. Around 500 protesters set fire to 16 buses and a bus terminal owned by South Korea’s Sammi Group.
Around 200 protesters stormed the KFC restaurant and set it ablaze, badly damaging the building and the nearby offices of cell phone company Mobilink, witnesses said.
The bodies of a boy who was shot in the head and a 28-year-old man killed in the riots were taken to the city’s Lady Reading Hospital, its deputy medical superintendent Yousuf Pervez told AFP, while others were wounded by tear gas shells.
In Lahore, a youth died in cross-fire between police and protesters in Punjab University’s New Campus area after rioters started hurling stones at security forces and passing vehicles, a security official said, requesting anonymity.
Protesters again clashed with police on roads near the Mall, Lahore’s main street — where rioters on Tuesday damaged two McDonald’s restaurants and a Pizza Hut, and torched another KFC.
The riots also spread to Tank, a remote town south of Peshawar near Pakistan’s troubled tribal areas, where a policeman was wounded by a pistol shot as a mob torched some 25 video and music shops.
— With input from agencies
