- Cabinet approved summary through circulation moved by interior ministry
- TLP has assured the government it will not organise violent protests in the future, says summary
The federal government on Saturday approved the summary to lift a ban on Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), almost a week after the religious party reached an agreement with the authorities to end protests across the country.
Sources in the government told Pakistan Today that the federal cabinet on Saturday approved the de-proscription of the TLP, after the political party and the government had struck a secretive deal earlier this week.
The federal cabinet approved the removal of the party’s proscribed status through a circulation summary sent by the interior ministry, sources said, which mentioned that TLP has assured the government it will not organise violent protests in the future.
The approval comes during a meeting of the federal cabinet after the Ministry of Interior sent it a summary in this connection, saying that the group had assured the authorities that it would not resort to violence during any protest.
The Punjab government on Thursday approved revoking the proscription of the religious outfit and also allowed releasing hundreds of TLP activists as part of the agreement.
The federal government had earlier banned the TLP by declaring it a “militant organisation” for creating unrest in the country through a series of violent clashes with the law enforcement agencies.
Earlier today, an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore granted post-arrest bail to at least 10 TLP leaders.
During the proceedings, the prosecution did not oppose the bail in light of the agreement that assured the detained TLP leaders would be released.
The TLP leaders who got the bail included Maulana Farooqul Hassan, Ghulam Ghaus Baghdadi, Pir Zaheerul Hassan, Maulana Sharifuddin, Engineer Hafeezhllah Alvi, Muhammad Badar Munir, Qari Ashraf, Muhammad Akbar, Muzaffar Hussain, Muhammad Umair, and Muzamal Hussain.
The petitioner’s counsels told the court that the TLP leaders and workers had been detained on “baseless charges”.
Last week, the government had successfully reached an agreement with the TLP, putting an end to a 10-day protest. The pact came after around two weeks of clashes that left at least seven policemen dead and scores injured on both sides
The announcement was made at a news conference here in Islamabad where Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Mohammad Khan, prominent cleric Mufti Muneebur Rehman as well as TLP members Mufti Ghulam Abbas Faizi and Mufti Mohammad Ameer were present.
Prime Minister Imran Khan had defended the agreement as the only viable option left at the government’s disposal to defuse tensions amicably, saying the move warded off further bloodshed.
PM Imran had said he never subscribed to the idea of using force as a strategy to resolve such matters, adding that the intensity of the standoff between the government and the group demanded a peaceful solution to it.
