AFP
Islamabad
An opposition party worker was shot dead in Pakistan yesterday as hundreds of protesters clashed with riot police armed with water cannon and batons in the central city of Faisalabad.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice or PTI) party led by Imran Khan had vowed to paralyse the city as part of its efforts to topple the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom it accuses of poll-rigging.
The death could spark further violence and reinvigorate the opposition movement.
It received a boost yesterday when a judge ordered a vote audit in a key constituency, a longstanding demand of Khan.
He has said it will highlight systemic flaws in the 2013 general election which brought Sharif’s party to power.
TV footage showed PTI workers clashing with supporters of Sharif as well as with riot police, who baton-charged them as parts of Faisalabad came to a standstill.
Nabeela Ghazanfar, a spokeswoman for police in Punjab province, told AFP: “One protester has been killed and five others injured including two policemen.
“The Punjab police chief has issued strict orders not to let anybody take the law into their hands.”
A doctor in a Faisalabad hospital confirmed the death from bullet wounds and said five wounded were being treated.
A PTI official on the ground who asked that his name be withheld also said the worker had been shot. TV channels showed a man in civilian clothes wielding a pistol at the rally and blamed him for the killing.
Khan said supporters of Sharif’s party carried out the attack and lashed out at police.
“Peaceful protest is our right and it’s the duty of the state to provide security but the government tried to provoke our protesters,” the cricketer turned politician told reporters outside his home in Islamabad.
“Our workers were being shot at in the presence of the police,” he continued, adding he would address supporters in Faisalabad later in evening.
Information Minister Pervez Rashid however blamed Khan for “inciting the people to violence”, as smaller anti-government demonstrations broke out in Islamabad and the central city of Multan.
The clashes came as an election tribunal judge in the eastern city of Lahore accepted Khan’s plea for a vote audit in the constituency of the speaker of the national parliament.
Political violence is relatively rare in Pakistan’s peaceful and prosperous Punjab province, though it has been on the rise this year.
In June police clashed with followers of populist Canadian cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri in the eastern city of Lahore, leaving 14 protesters dead in an incident condemned by rights groups.
Followers of Khan and Qadri also clashed with police in late August after they united to protest in the capital in an attempt to force Sharif’s ousting.
Three demonstrators were killed and hundreds injured on both sides when the protesters tried to storm the prime minister’s residence.
Both groups allege that Sharif rigged the 2013 general election, though local and foreign observers rated the polls as credible.
On September 1 the opposition groups briefly occupied the state broadcaster.
Though Khan has so far failed in his aims to topple the government, his party has continued to stage major rallies around the country.
He has warned that he and his supporters will paralyse the country on December 18 if their demands are not met.
