KARACHI-
Three people, including two journalists were injured on Friday when police resorted to aerial firing in a clash with the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami protesting outside the French consulate in Karachi.
One of the injured, Asif Hasan; a photographer for a foreign news agency, was earlier reported to be in a critical condition. He is now stable.
“The bullet struck his lung, and passed through his chest. He is out of immediate danger and he has spoken to his colleagues,” said Doctor Seemi Jamali, a spokeswoman for Karachi’s Jinnah Hospital where Hassan was taken.
About 200 protesters clashed on Friday with Pakistani police outside the French consulate in the southern port city of Karachi after a demonstration against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo turned violent.
JI, and other religious parties are holding nationwide rallies against the depiction of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) by the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
According to news agency Reuters, its photographer said some of the protesters appeared armed with guns and he saw them firing shots after security forces used water cannon and tear gas to stop the crowd advancing on the French consulate.
Rangers were deployed around the consulate following the clashes. 20 protesters have also been arrested.
The protest has now moved to Teen Talwar Chowk where a sit-in is being staged.
Nationwide protests continue today against the printing of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) in a French magazine as a faction of the Taliban denounced the journalists involved as “filthy blasphemers”.
The rallies come a day after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif led parliament in condemning the reprinting of the cartoons, regarded by many Muslims as offensive, in Charlie Hebdo, whose offices were targeted by attackers last week, leaving 12 people dead.
Tens of thousands of religious party activists are expected to turn out nationwide, including followers of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charitable wing of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group which masterminded attacks on Mumbai in 2008.
The group has come under the spotlight following Pakistan’s pledge to crack down on all militant groups, including those considered friendly to its interests, in the aftermath of a school massacre last month that left 150 people dead.
The Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction of the Pakistani Taliban meanwhile issued a statement lauding the two brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo assault, saying “they freed the earth from the existence of filthy blasphemers”.
In addition to rallies by religious parties, lawyers in central Punjab and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces have vowed to boycott court proceedings to display their displeasure over the sketches.
The magazine this week published a “survivors” issue featuring a blasphemous image of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), which sold out Wednesday before more copies of an eventual print run of five million hit newsstands in France.