SARGODHA, Pakistan — At least three people were killed Friday when Pakistani police opened fire on pro-Taliban protesters in a crackdown on a general strike called by Islamic parties against the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan.
The strike, which shut down most bazaars but attracted only small crowds, was called by the 35-party Afghanistan Defense Council in protest against Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's support of the U.S. raids on the Taliban and their guest Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The police said they baton-charged and lobbed tear gas at more than 1,000 protesters blocking a train at Shadan Lund railway station, 90 miles from the central Punjab city of Multan, before opening fire.
Dr. Khalil ur Rehman Lund at the Rural Health Center in Shadan Lund said three people died of bullet wounds and four were wounded.
But at a news conference in Islamabad, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, secretary-general of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) Party, named four people he said had been killed by police.
The JUI said its members had taken four police hostage near Shadan Lund and would hold them until action was taken against the senior police officers responsible for the shooting.
"Yes, we have four policemen," Mohammad Riaz Durrani, the JUI's central secretary for information, told Reuters. He said the policemen would not be harmed. There was no immediate comment from police on the report.
Police at Shadan Lund said they had detained 22 protesters.
In cities across Pakistan, a pivotal ally of the United States in its attacks on Afghanistan, police fired tear gas and warning shots to scatter demonstrations and arrested many activists of the parties backing Afghanistan's ruling Taliban.
Roads were almost deserted and shops shuttered, but because the government also declared Friday a national holiday to mark the birthday of national poet Allama Iqbal, it was difficult to gauge the extent of the strike.
MAJOR SHOW OF FORCE
The police mounted a major show of force in cities and fears of mass violence did not materialise.
Around 100 protesters who were blocking a national highway near Sibi, 60 miles southeast of Quetta in Baluchistan province, were detained, police said. Police fired into the air and used teargas and baton charges to disperse the crowd.
About 60 protesters were arrested in the Baluchistan provincial capital, Quetta, while trying to block transport by burning old tyres on the streets, police said.
Police also fired teargas at protesters in the cities of Karachi and Rawalpindi and in the northwestern city of Peshawar, gateway to the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan.
About 100 Taliban supporters, chanting "Osama will rule" and "Taliban, Taliban" marched through the bazaars of Peshawar, shutting down shops, witnesses said.
In Rawalpindi, near the national capital Islamabad, police chased small groups of protesters into side-streets and arrested several, witnesses said.
The Islamic parties had vowed to bring the country to a halt in a pro-Taliban show of force, despite a government crackdown against their leaders, two of whom were detained this week.
Haideri called the strike "complete," barring a few cities, and said leaders of alliance parties would meet in Islamabad Saturday to discuss future action that could include a call for a campaign of civil disobedience.
Musharraf was due in the United States Friday after a visit to Europe.
"Innocent people are being killed in Afghanistan and Musharraf is going to make more agreements with America," Maulana Samiul Haq, head of the council and leader of his own faction of the hard-line Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam party, told a rally of a few hundred supporters in Peshawar.
"Your (Musharraf's) policies are against the interests of Pakistan...The United States has occupied Pakistan," said Haq, his speech punctuated by crowd shouts of "Death to America."
Pakistani air space is the main route for U.S. bombing raids, but many Pakistanis oppose the bombing, and Musharraf said in Paris Thursday he would try to persuade President Bush in their meeting Saturday to suspend the bombing of Afghanistan during Ramadan.
Haideri said police had arrested more than 200 members of his JUI faction in a pre-emptive strike over the past two days. Another major Islamic party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, said several of its members were also arrested.