KARACHI : A photojournalist was shot at and three other persons were injured when the activists of Pakistan’s right-wing Jamaat-e-Islami protesting against French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo today clashed with police outside the French consulate here.
The protestors from the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami were marching towards the French consulate in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, leading to a showdown with police which fired tear gas and bullets in the air.
A photojournalist from French news agency AFP received gunshot wounds while covering the protest rally. Three protestors were also injured by tear gas shells.
The bullet struck the photojournalist’s lung, and passed through his chest, said a doctor at Karachi’s Jinnah Hospital where the journalist, Asif Hasan, has been admitted.
He is out of immediate danger, the doctor said.
Thousands of religious party activists, including followers of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a wing of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba which masterminded attacks on Mumbai in 2008, today observed black day and held nationwide protest after Friday prayers against the satirical magazine which republished cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, considered as un-Islamic by Muslims.
The satirical weekly published the contents on Wednesday after an attack on its office in Paris by two gunmen last week in which 12 people were killed.
Protesters in the northwest city of Peshawar and central Multan burnt French flags on the streets while rallies were held in the capital Islamabad and the eastern city of Lahore.
The rallies came a day after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif led parliament in condemning the cartoons in Charlie Hebdo.
The government has taken security measures to keep the protesters within limits of law.
Several people were killed in Pakistan when religious parties protested against the Innocence of Muslim movie in 2013. (AGENCIES)
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