HR Commission of Pakistan march attacked, Asma Jahangir gets her clothes torn off

Enlightened moderation?:

Mixed citizens rally violently dispersed by police

* About 40 arrested, later released
* City government to blame

By Waqar Gillani and Aayan Ali

LAHORE: A police contingent laid into a gathering of women and men organised by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and the Joint Action Committee for Peoples Rights which had congregated on the Main Boulevard in Gulberg to stage a “mixed-marathon” to test the enlightened-moderation” claims of the government, and swept about 40 of them to the police station.

Asma Jahangir, the chairperson of the HRCP, and Iqbal Haider, the secretary-general, were among those who were brutally dragged into police vans and held for a couple of hours at local police stations. The police action against the congregation was taken on the orders of the Lahore Nazim, Mian Amir Mahmood, who claimed that he had disallowed the rally after receiving “negative reports” from the police. In turn, the police claimed that it had received information of an impending assault on the mixed rally by activists of the Shabab-e-Milli, the youth wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami. But eyewitness reports confirmed that a handful of such activists arrived on the scene only after the police had dragged away the women and broken up the event.

Ms Jahangir told Daily Times: “I received a threatening call on my cell phone from someone claiming to be the president of the Shabab-i-Milli, Ahmad Salmaan, but when I later returned the call to check its authenticity, the person at the other end told me that the police had come to his tyre shop and called her from there”. Among the others who were briefly detained were Hina Jillani, Shahtaj Qazilbash, Tahseen Ahmad, Farooq Tariq, Joseph Francis, et al. Asma Jahangir was roughed up and her clothes were torn in the melee. One policewoman was heard abusing her: “We have orders to strip you in public and teach you a lesson”. Three other women were slightly injured.