RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chairman Imran Khan said in an interview to Express News on Saturday that Friday’s clashes in Rawalpindi could have been avoided by the authorities.
“Didn’t they [the authorities] know how things can get in these processions?” Khan said.

The PTI chief said better administrative planning could have averted riots.
Though he did not comment on whether Friday’s riots were planned, he mentioned that globally, Shia-Sunni conflicts have been deliberately fanned across the Middle East, and were now poisoning Pakistan.

Sheikh Rasheed calls clashes a ‘total failure of administration’
Earlier, Awami Muslim League (AML) President and MNA Sheikh Rasheed demanded that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif help those people whose shops were destroyed due to sectarian clashes which erupted at a Muharram 10 procession.

A curfew was imposed in parts of Rawalpindi after yesterday’s clashes left at least eight people dead and over 80 injured. A group of miscreants had snatched weapons from police officials and had opened fire.
Unknown persons had also set a portion of the cloth market in Raja Bazar on fire. Ten buildings are known to have been destroyed.

Rasheed said, while speaking to the media in Rawalpindi, that if this was any city other than Rawalpindi, a lot more action would have been taken already.
“I would like to tell the country, Shahbaz Sharif and the government that this is a total failure of the administration.”

“We are sandwiched between the armed forces and diplomats,” the MNA added.

He appealed to the public and the ulema asking them to respect all sects of Islam, adding that one should “maintain his own beliefs while respecting others’ beliefs as well.”

He said that the affected shop owners supply goods not only in Rawalpindi, but to all parts of Pakistan and help should be given to them in this situation.

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