- Title: Anti-India protests in Pakistan after cross-border shelling
- Date: 25th November 2016
- Summary: PLACARD READING (Urdu): "INDIAN TERRORISM ON CONTROL LINE SHOULD BE RESPONDED TO ACCORDINGLY"
- Embargoed: 10th December 2016 15:37
- Keywords: Pakistan India shelling protest prayers
- Location: LAHORE, KARACHI AND ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN
- City: LAHORE, KARACHI AND ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN
- Country: Pakistan
- Reuters ID: LVA00259Y1FT3
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Scores of protesters took to the streets of Pakistani cities on Friday (November 25), to demonstrate against Indian cross-border firing that killed at least 12 people in the Pakistani administered Kashmir on Wednesday (November 23).
Indian shelling across the frontier into Pakistani-controlled Kashmir on Wednesday hit a passenger bus, killing at least nine people. Three other people, Pakistani soldiers, were killed in fire exchange with Indian troops in the border area, Pakistan said.
Holding banners and placards, over 150 people staged a protest in Lahore, the capital city of the Pakistani province of Punjab. Dozens protested in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and Islamabad, the country's capital.
Demonstrators shouted slogans and burned down Indian flag.
"Firing on defenseless citizens is the proof of Indian terrorism. Our lives and assets are there to defend our country," read one banner carried by protesters in Karachi.
The protests were organised by religious political groups Jamaat-ud-Dawah and Sunni Tehreek. The charity Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) is listed as a "foreign terrorist organisation" by the United States. Western officials regard it as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the militant group behind an attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people in 2008.
Sunni Tehreek is a religious movement and a hardline political party.
Karachi chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Muzammil Iqbal Hashmi urged Pakistani officials to take a strong stand.
"Pakistan should take full revenge. It should silence the Indian guns," he added.
Demonstrators held funeral prayers at a symbolic funeral for the victims of the attack.
On Thursday (November 24) a similar protest was held by residents of Pakistani administered Kashmir with over 200 people taking to the streets of Muzaffarabad, capital of Azad (Pakistani) Kashmir.
India, in a statement, expressed grief at Pakistani civilian casualties but said: "Retaliatory firing by Indian troops has only been carried out targeting locations from where Pakistan has initiated ceasefire violations on Indian posts."
Relations between nuclear-armed neighbours Pakistan and India have been strained for several months, while cross-frontier shelling has intensified leading to the deaths of civilians and soldiers stationed along the disputed frontier.
Kashmir lies at the heart of the tension. The countries have fought two of their three wars over the region since partition and independence from Britain in 1947. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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