ISLAMABAD: The federal government has reportedly reached a fresh agreement with the prescribed Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) to call off the protests, media reported citing sources.
According to reports, a government team including Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan, and religious scholar Mufti Muneebur Rehman held talks with the leaders of the banned outfit
The ministers will announce the development via a press conference shortly. On Saturday, Prime Minister Imran Khan met a group of top clerics at his Bani Gala residence regarding the protest march by the TLP.
Sources revealed Mufti Muneeb also met the outfit’s incarcerated TLP leader Saad Rizvi in Islamabad. Saad Rizvi and three senior members of the TLP ‘Shura’ — Maulana Shafiq Amini, Engineer Hafezullah and Pir Inayatul Haq — were reportedly brought to Islamabad from Lahore for direct negotiations.
Addressing media after the prime minister’s meeting with the clerics, Minister of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Noorul Haq Qadri announced that a 12-member committee has been constituted to negotiate with the outfit.
He said that religious leaders from across the country met the prime minister and expressed the resolve to wrap up the matter peacefully. “The prime minister conveyed that he has always welcomed negotiations, however, no compromise will be made over the writ of the state,” he said.
“The 12-member committee is in talks with the TLP leadership, and we hope they can move forward in their negotiations with the proscribed political party,” the minister added.
President Sunni Ittehad Council Sahibzada Hamid Raza said the prime minister had assured the meeting’s participants that the government would not use “torture” to curtail the protests.
Raza said the prime minister told the meeting that he did not wish to see bloodshed in the country, but noted that there would be “no compromise when it came to the writ of the state.”
“We urge the protesters to not resort to violence as negotiations are underway in different parts of the country,” the SIC president said. When asked whether the protest was a constitutional right, Raza said that the protesters should remain where there and not move forward.
Roads remained blocked and traffic suspended in Wazirabad on Saturday as TLP protestors intending to march on Islamabad encamped near the city for a second straight day. Outside Wazirabad, security forces have dug trenches and placed barricades on the roads in an attempt to contain the mob near a crossing over the Chenab.
