TLP calls off nationwide protests as NA debates French envoy expulsion
- In Reports
- 05:15 PM, Apr 21, 2021
- Myind Staff
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan-led government on Tuesday decided to introduce a resolution in Parliament to expel the French ambassador and quash all criminal cases filed against the banned radical Islamist party Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) after which the party has called of its protest.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that the recently proscribed TLP has agreed to call off protests across the country. "Talks with the party will continue," he said.
He announced that the government would present a resolution on the expulsion of the French ambassador in the National Assembly today.
In a video statement, he said the decision was taken after another round of talks with TLP.
The minister said that the cases registered against TLP workers under the Fourth Schedule will also be withdrawn, adding that he will give a detailed briefing on the development via a press conference later today.
The announcement comes after a government delegation, comprising the interior minister and Religious Affairs Minister Pir Noorul Haq Qadri, met TLP workers for yet another round of talks in Lahore late on Monday.
Before the breakthrough, three rounds of talks between the government and TLP party chief Saad Rizvi at Kot Lakhpat jail remained inconclusive as the latter could not be convinced to record a video message for party workers to end their plans of a long march on Islamabad.
However, the two sides had agreed to meet again late in the night at Punjab Governor House to discuss and finalise which demands put forward by the TLP chief as a prerequisite for terminating the outfit’s protest plan could be accepted by the government.
The government has also given the nod to release its chief, Saad Rizvi, whose arrest triggered the unrest, and other party activists and supporters detained under the Maintenance of Public Order and on terrorism charges.
The TLP spokesperson confirmed that Rizvi had been set free from custody but an official denied this development.
France has already advised its citizens to temporarily leave Pakistan. Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, a political analyst, told Reuters the government wanted to take the matter of the French envoy's expulsion to the parliament, "so they can say they have consulted with them and whatever step they take has a consensus behind it".
The government's apparent acceptance of the militants' demands would be seen as a victory for the Islamists, said author and analyst Khaled Ahmed.
Image Source: AP
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