ISLAMABAD — Thousands of Pakistani police officers in riot gear fired tear gas and rubber bullets Saturday as they tried to clear out a firebrand cleric’s supporters, who have paralyzed the Pakistani capital for weeks with a protest on a main highway.
Six people were killed and another 200 injured after the crackdown began, the Associated Press reported.
Dozens of police officers and paramilitary troops were among those injured in the violent confrontation, authorities said. At least 150 protesters were arrested.
Late Saturday evening, Islamabad officials requested the help of army troops to help restore order in the capital, the Interior Ministry said.
The protests spread to other cities in response to the confrontation in Islamabad, where supporters of the cleric, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, have been camped at the Faizabad Interchange, blocking the main road from Rawalpindi.
Rizvi, who leads the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan party, is demanding the resignation of Pakistan’s law minister, Zahid Hamid, over a change to electoral laws that amended the wording of an oath sworn by lawmakers. The new wording altered the traditional reference to the prophet Mohammed.
The change had weakened an oath that all candidates for public office must repeat, swearing they believe that Mohammed was the final prophet. Pakistan’s population is 95 percent Muslim.
The wording was quickly reversed, but Rizvi’s supporters had denounced the initial change as blasphemy — a highly combustible issue in Pakistan and one that has repeatedly led to acts of violence.
On Saturday, Rizvi rallied his supporters from atop a trailer, shouting through a microphone and accusing authorities of working on behalf of the United States.
“Trump says change Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. Are you acting on his orders?’’ he asked police.
At one point, the electronic media regulating authority took all television news networks off the air in most parts of the country, and Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were also inaccessible, amid concerns that live coverage of the police action was inflaming religious sentiments.
The violence and spreading protests present a grave challenge to the country’s governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
At least 8,000 police officers in riot gear and a separate paramilitary police force that had encircled the approximately 2,000 protesters began trying to clear the protesters staging a sit-in on the main interchange in the city early Saturday.
Using water cannons, canisters of tear gas, and slings, they managed to wrest back control of a large area. Dozens of tents burned. Thick plumes of smoke and tear gas could be seen from afar as protesters and police officers clashed, each side using stones and batons.
But by midday, the balance seemed to have shifted back to the protesters, who remained in control of the main part of their camp. Dozens of officers were among the injured, officials said.
As the protesters held their ground, Rizvi grew bolder and urged his supporters to bring the whole country to a standstill. Rizvi’s speeches were broadcast on Facebook Live and helped to galvanize his supporters across the country.
By Saturday evening, officials said the operation against the protesters in Islamabad had been suspended, and they denied that a police officer had died during the clashes, after local and foreign reports had published news of the death, attributing it to a police spokesman.
Protesters, meanwhile, stormed the home of Hamid, the law minister, in Pasrur in Sialkot district. Neither Hamid nor his relatives were present at the time of the attack.
Another lawmaker from the governing party, Mian Javid Latif, was attacked by protesters and injured in Sheikhupura district, local news media reported. His condition was stable, they said. Local media outlets reported that protesters in Rawalpindi had damaged the entrance of the house of Nisar Ali Khan, a former interior minister.
Buoyed by the success of their resistance, the protest leaders increased their demands and called for the whole federal Cabinet to resign.
The Islamabad high court last week ordered the government to clear the interchange. But it has been reluctant to use force, fearful that violence could give more oxygen to the hard-line Islamists.
The government has refused to fire Hamid, and negotiations for a peaceful end to the protests have been unsuccessful. Reversing the change in the law has failed to assuage the anger of religious leaders, especially Rizvi, who has used the controversy to expand his influence and outreach.
Authorities said protests had closed a road that connects Islamabad to the eastern city of Lahore, where hundreds of protesters burned tires and scuffled with police. There were clashes in the southern port city of Karachi, according to media reports.
Pakistan’s politically powerful army has urged the government to move cautiously. According to a military spokesman, the army chief of staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, called Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Saturday.
He urged him “to handle the protest peacefully, avoiding violence from both sides as it is not in the national interest,’’ the spokesman, Major General Asif Ghafoor, said.
Afrasiab Khattak, a prominent politician and newspaper columnist, said in an interview that the protests represented a coordinated effort to topple the government.
“It is not a spontaneous protest,’’ he said. “It is a very well-planned move by the religious right and their supporters in the state system to use the clashes in Islamabad as a detonator for riots in other parts of the country, especially Punjab province.’’
Punjab is the country’s most prosperous and populous province and the political power base of Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister and leader of the current governing party. Sharif resigned in July, after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding office following a corruption probe.
He remains popular, however, and his party has ruled out calling for early elections, a demand by opposition political parties.
Khattak said the protesters belonged to the Barelvi sect of Sunni Muslims, who had formed the bulk of Sharif’s support. “But now, the Barelvis have been pitted against Sharif’s party,’’ he said. “It is the endgame.’’
