Screening of Punjab CM's security personnel in view of threat from extremist org TLP

Pakistan's Punjab police have launched screening of all personnel deployed for the security of provincial Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz following threats from Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), an official said on Monday.

Maryam Nawaz, the first woman chief minister of Punjab has also curtailed her public appearance and the security of some senior members of her cabinet too has been beefed up in the face of the threats from the radical party.

The steps are taken after a crackdown against the TLP, now a proscribed outfit, when at least 16 people, including policemen, were killed and over 1,600 injured in clashes between the police and supporters of TLP at Muridke, some 60 kms from Lahore, on October 10.


The screening process covers all security personnel stationed at the Sharif family home in Jati Umra Lahore and the Chief Minister's Office as well as other supporting staff.

"The move aims to ensure that no individual associated with any proscribed organisation or having extremist views remains part of the CM's security detail," the official said.

He said the scrutiny is being carried out after intelligence inputs indicated potential risks linked to individuals with suspected affiliations to the TLP.

The official said that the chief minister and her cabinet members are particularly concerned, rather worried, keeping in view the case of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer.

In 2011, Taseer of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) was shot dead by his own security guard for supporting a Christian woman Asia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy.

The security guard Muntaz Qadri, who was a supporter of TLP, later confessed that he killed Taseer for supporting a blasphemy suspect.

The federal government declared TLP a proscribed outfit on Thursday, obliging Punjab government's request.

Punjab police claim to have arrested over 6,000 TLP activists so far following the violent clashes over the issue of holding an anti-Israel demonstration outside the US Embassy in Islamabad on October 10.

Control of all the TLP mosques and seminaries has also been given to the Auqaf Department of the Punjab government, officials said.

The TLP claimed that hundreds of its supporters were killed while thousands injured as police opened direct fire on the "unarmed" protesters who wanted to express their solidarity with the people of Palestine. PTI