Policeman detains protester in Pakistan
Photo: AFP
Cleric: Kill cartoonist, get reward
Pakistani cleric offers money, car to anyone who kills Muhammad cartoonist
A Pakistani cleric offered a 1.5 million rupee (USD 25,000) reward and a car to anyone who kills the cartoonist who drew Prophet Muhammad, while another Islamist leader was put under house detention amid fears of more deadly demonstrations, officials said Friday.
Thousands of security forces were deployed across the country to prevent unrest. Police arrested 125 protesters for violating a ban on rallies in eastern Pakistan and arrested 30 others after firing tear gas to disperse a protest in the southern city of Karachi. Thousands staged rallies in other cities. Denmark temporarily closed its embassy in Pakistan, officials said.
Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the historic Mohabat Khan mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, announced the mosque and the Jamia Ashrafia religious school he leads would give a 1.5 million rupee reward and a car for killing the cartoonist of the prophet pictures that appeared first in a Danish newspaper in September.
He also said a local jewelers' association would give one million dollars. No representative of the association was available to confirm it had made the offer.
"Whoever has done this despicable and shameful act, he has challenged the honor of Muslims. Whoever will kill this cursed man, he will get one million dollars from the association of the jewelers' bazaar, one million rupees from Masjid Mohabat Khan and 500,000 rupees and a car from Jamia Ashrafia as a reward," Qureshi said.
"This is a unanimous decision by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam that whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," Qureshi said.
He did not name the cartoonist in his announcement, made to about 1,000 people outside the mosque after Friday prayers. They burned a flag of Denmark and an effigy of the Danish prime minister.
Sirajul Haq, a senior minister in the provincial government - which is run by a hard-line Islamic coalition - told the same gathering that the government should demand the extradition of the cartoonist and put him on trial in Pakistan.
Dead, injured in anti-cartoon protests
Elsewhere in Peshawar, where violent protests on Wednesday left two dead and scores injured, police fired tear gas to disperse more than 1,000 people who were trying to block a street. Several people were arrested, said a witness, Khizar Hayat.
In a main street in the city, four effigies representing Danish, German, French and Norwegian leaders were hanged from lamp posts.
Police in eastern Punjab province, meanwhile, were ordered to restrict the movement of all religious leaders who might address any rallies and round up religious activists "who could be any threat to law and order," a senior police official said in Lahore, the provincial capital.
In Multan, another city in Punjab province, about 300 police swooped down on 125 protesters, who gathered at a traffic circle, chanting, "We are slaves of the prophet," and trampling on a Danish flag, said Sharif Zafar, a police official.
Protesters shouted "Death to Musharraf" as they were bundled into two police buses, referring to Pakistan's leader, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Zafar said they were being taken to a police station because they were violating a ban on rallies in Punjab which was declared after deadly riots in Lahore on Tuesday.
In Karachi, police fired tear gas and swung batons to disperse about 2,000 protesters, many wielding sticks, who blocked the main highway into the southern city, said Alim Jafari, a Karachi police official. The road was cleared and some 30 protesters were detained, he said.
