- News>
- Asia
Pak police act against Muslim mob attacks on billboards
Multan, June 10: Police in central Pakistan have arrested 28 radical Muslim activists for vandalising billboards depicting women and trying to torch a circus, police said today.
Multan, June 10: Police in central Pakistan have arrested 28 radical Muslim activists for vandalising billboards depicting women and trying to torch a circus, police said today.
"Punjab (provincial) police arrested 28 activists of the Shabab-i-Milli and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) for taking the law into their own hands, destroying billboards and attempting to set a circus on fire," Multan police chief Hamid Mukhtar Gondal told reporters.
They are being held under the Maintenance of Public Order Act, he said.
Multan, long a hotbed of Islamic militancy, lies in the poverty-stricken south of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province. Arrests were also made in the Punjab city of Gujranwala.
Shabab and JI activists have followed their colleagues in Islamist-ruled North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in waging a so-called anti-obscenity drive, targetting billboards carrying female models.
Shabab's provincial chief Abdul Wahab Khan Niazi denied police charges that his followers attacked a circus in Gujranwala on June 8, saying they only staged a protest.
"Our workers had organised a protest rally against the management of a theatrical circus company in Gujranwala on Sunday where semi-nude dances were being presented," Niazi told a press conference.
"This allegation that our activists looted cash, manhandled the staff and attempted to set the circus on fire is absolutely incorrect."
Bureau Report
They are being held under the Maintenance of Public Order Act, he said.
Multan, long a hotbed of Islamic militancy, lies in the poverty-stricken south of Punjab, Pakistan's largest province. Arrests were also made in the Punjab city of Gujranwala.
Shabab and JI activists have followed their colleagues in Islamist-ruled North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in waging a so-called anti-obscenity drive, targetting billboards carrying female models.
Shabab's provincial chief Abdul Wahab Khan Niazi denied police charges that his followers attacked a circus in Gujranwala on June 8, saying they only staged a protest.
"Our workers had organised a protest rally against the management of a theatrical circus company in Gujranwala on Sunday where semi-nude dances were being presented," Niazi told a press conference.
"This allegation that our activists looted cash, manhandled the staff and attempted to set the circus on fire is absolutely incorrect."
Bureau Report