KARACHI: Chief of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), Khadim Hussain Rizvi, was taken into protective custody by law enforcement agencies on Friday, Information Minister confirmed.
"Khadim Hussain Rizvi has been taken into protective custody by police and shifted to a guest house. They insisted to come to Rawalpindi refusing Governments proposal for alternative arrangements." Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry tweeted.
Fawad added that the arrested is to " safeguard public life, property and order and has to do nothing with Asia Bibi case."
Saad Rizvi, son of Khadim Hussain Rizvi, told Arab News Friday night that, “The Allama (scholar) was arrested from his Hujra (quarter) in Lahore a little while ago."
His son also added that other TLP leaders, including the group’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief, Syed Zafar Iqbal Shah, and other prominent figures, such as Mufti Zahoor Ahmed, Allama Akram Jalali, Maulana Nisar Ahmed and Muhammad Hafeezullah Alvi had also been arrested from their respective towns.
Large number of TLP activists gathered at Naumaish in Karachi to protest the crackdown. In response, the police started shelling and arresting several activists.
TLP, a politico-religious party that surprised many in the last general elections after bagging significant number of votes from Punjab and Karachi, had planned a public rally in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat Bagh on November 25, said to “honor its martyrs”
The group had also staged a sit-in against a recent Supreme Court verdict in which the country’s top judiciary had exonerated a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, of blasphemy charges.
However, TLP leadership decided to end its violent protest after signing a deal with the federal government.
