Pakistan opened talks with radical Islamists on Monday after they released 11 policemen who had kidnapped protests against blasphemy for a week against France in which four officers were killed, the interior minister said.
Most major companies, markets, shopping malls and public transport services were closed in major cities in response to a strike call by Tehrik-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) and its affiliated groups.
The Pakistan PSX 100 stock market opened 500 points lower in the morning, although it recovered later.
Police officers were abducted during clashes outside the TLP headquarters in the eastern city of Lahore, which according to the group also killed its three members.
His captors posted photographs of police officers, with their heads, legs and arms severely bandaged.
“They have released the eleven policemen who had been taken hostage,” Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said in a video statement.
He said negotiations with the TLP were underway.
“There have been two rounds of talks and there will be another one later in the evening,” Religious Affairs Minister Noor-ul-Haq Qadri told parliament. “We believe in negotiations and reconciliation to solve problems.”
The government outlawed the TLP last week after blocking major highways, railways and access routes to major cities, attacking police and burning public goods. Four police officers were killed and more than 500 were injured.
Violence erupted after the government arrested TLP leader Saad Hussain Rizvi before a planned national campaign against France to pressure the Islamabad government to expel the French ambassador in response to the publication of cartoons in France. last year representing the Prophet Mohammad.
The TLP has filed four main demands in talks with the government, officials on both sides said.
They included the expulsion of the French ambassador, the release of the TLP leader and some 1,400 arrested workers, the lifting of the group ban and the dismissal of the interior minister.
Prime Minister Imran Khan said expelling the French ambassador would only cause damage to Pakistan and that diplomatic compromise between the Muslim world and the West was the only way to resolve the disputes.
“When we return the French ambassador and break relations with them it means we break relations with the European Union,” he said in a televised speech. “Half of our textile exports go to the EU, so half of our textile exports would have disappeared.”
Relations between Paris and Islamabad have deteriorated since late last year after President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to a French history teacher who was beheaded by an 18-year-old man of Chechen descent to show cartoon of the prophet in a class on free speech.
Protests erupted in several Muslim countries over France’s response to the teacher’s assassination. The Prophet’s cartoons were also reprinted elsewhere.
At the time, the Khan government signed an agreement promising to present a resolution to parliament on April 20 to call for approval of the French envoy’s expulsion and support the boycott of French products.
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