Another life was lost in Pakistan on Monday during protests against the anti-Islam film, Innocence of Muslims , which has angered Muslims across the world and triggered large-scale violence in the Middle East and North Africa since last Wednesday.
While one protester was killed near the U.S. Consulate in Karachi on Sunday, the second person died in the usually volatile north-western parts of the country on Monday. This was in police firing on a protest in Upper Dir.
Meanwhile, protests continued in most of the cities of the country but remained peaceful except for some stone pelting reported from Karachi and burning of tyres. The clash between the police and protesters in Karachi on Sunday evening had turned particularly violent later in the night with the mob torching a police picket and setting afire vehicles of security personnel.
In both Lahore and Karachi, attempts were made again to break through the heavy fortification around the U.S. consulates. Since these fortifications are permanent owing to the security situation in the country and rampant anti-Americanism, breaching them is not easy as compared to makeshift barricading.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court instructed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block clips from the film that are in circulation via YouTube and other sites. Though PTA had claimed on Thursday that it had “proactively blocked” the film by asking service providers to do the needful, it could still be accessed;, leading to the petition seeking the apex court’s intervention.
