At least seven Pakistani police officers were taken hostage in Lahore on Sunday by anti-France protesters belonging to a radical Islamist party, a police spokesman said.
"Members of TLP,"
the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan party,
"are holding five policemen and two members of the Ranger Corps hostage
,
"
said Rana Arif, police spokesperson in Lahore.
In a tweet, Firdous Ashiq Awan, spokesman for the government of the province of Punjab, assures him that up to twelve police officers were kidnapped and taken to the TLP mosque in Lahore, where hundreds of anti-protesters are gathered. -France.
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A video posted on Sunday, the authenticity of which was confirmed to AFP by the Lahore police, shows a police officer, his head wrapped in a bandage stained with blood, addressing the camera from the interior of the mosque.
The footage then shows TLP members sitting on the ground around him.
Islamists have been protesting since Monday against the imprisonment of their leader, who was arrested for asking for the expulsion of the French ambassador.
Anti-France protests took place in several cities across the country, leading to the deaths of six police officers and leading the French embassy to call on its nationals to temporarily leave the country.
Read also: Paris calls on the French to leave Pakistan
According to Firdous Ashiq Awan,
“violent groups armed with Molotov cocktails and bottles of acid invaded the Nawankot police station this morning”
. Officials of the TLP, an officially banned party, said several members of their movement were killed on Sunday.
"We will not bury them until the French ambassador is deported,"
Allama Muhammad Shafiq Amini, a TLP leader in Lahore, said in a video posted online. The TLP has embarked on an anti-French campaign since President Emmanuel Macron defended the right of the weekly Charlie Hebdo to publish the cartoons of Muhammad, an act they deem blasphemous.
Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said TLP activists had blocked 191 sites over the past week and that the Lahore Mosque was now their meeting point.
“
No negotiations are underway.
We tried to parley for two or three months, but they are sticking to their positions and the government has no choice but to implement its decision ”
(to ban the TLP), he added.
Pakistani authorities have banned the movement, classified as a terrorist group.
